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IMPB VIDE NT CI VILIZA TION 



ADDRESS 



BY 



VICE PRESIDENT RICHARD T. COLBURN 



CHAIRMAN OF SECTION I 



BEFORE THE 



SECTION OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCE 



AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



Detroit Meeting 



August, 1897. 



From the Proceedings of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, voe. xlvi, 1897.] 



Salem ipress do. 

Mass. 




IMPB VIDE XT CI VILIZA TION 



AN 



ADDRESS 



BY 



VICE PRESIDENT KICHAED T. COLBURN 



CHAIRMAN OF SECTION I 



BEFORE THE 



SECTION OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCE 



AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



Detroit Meeting 



AUGUST, 1897. 



Fr»m the Proceedings of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, vol. xlvi, 1897. \ 



TZbc Salem (press Co. 
Salem, Mass. 

1897. 



By Transfer 
.. 06 






■ 



ADDRES S 



BY 



KICHAED T. COLBURISr, 

VICE PRESIDENT, AND CHAIRMAN OF SECTION I. 



IMPROVIDENT CIVILIZATION. 

A plea for the application of scientific methods to the amelioration 
of socio-economic defects and disorders. 



The responsibility you have seen fit to place upon me, I will 
now ask you to share with me. 

The controversy in respect to a bimetallic money standard, and 
the other as to the limits of safety for representative or currency 
money, are certain to be fully worked over, by the powerful vested 
interests concerned, in Reports of Commissions, and printed vol- 
umes. I devote a minute or two to explaining that they are but 
parts of a far greater question of Metrology ; one also requiring, 
for its elucidation, a more exact knowledge of the laws of thought 
than we at present command. 

When we speak of value, equivalency, wealth, risk, trust, dis- 
trust, panic, prosperity, we are dealing not with concrete sub- 
stances like gold pieces, but with states of mind ; yet these ideas 
lie at the foundation of commercial exchanges and monetary 
science. We can measure the relations of one commodity to an- 
other, in a rough way, by the difficulty or labor-cost of produc- 
tion ; but when we try to measure the relations of one commodity 
which has little or no skill wrought in with its production with 
another in which there is inventive or artistic skill, or sentiment, or 



4 SECTION I. 

risk of life or limb involved, the relation is not merely quantita- 
tive. To illustrate : Have any of you ever imagined what would 
happen if some modern Rosicrucian were to succeed in doing what 
so long baffled the alchemists, and which has been announced from 
time to time as being accomplished, viz. : the turning of base metals 
cheaply into gold ? No one can maintain that this is impossible ; 
and this is preeminently the era when the dreams of ancient philos- 
ophers become realities. The diamond, a much more unpromising 
object, has been made before our eyes by M. Moissan. Such a 
discovery would introduce into the world of commerce, and indeed 
into all fiscal relations of men, an appalling confusion : first, by 
a general rise of prices ; and, second, by a dislocation of fixed 
payments of interest, salaries and otherwise. Among other curious 
results we should witness would be a change of sides, and tunes, 
between the advocates of the gold and silver standards with a 
general desire to shift over by the holders of contracts for specific 
payments " in coin or its equivalent." The same thing would 
happen, only more slowly, if a vast deposit of gold ore was un- 
earthed ; and if, after gold were thus discredited by a practically 
inexhaustible supply, the attempt were made to put silver in its 
place (the price of which would be enormously enhanced), this 
state of things would be liable, in its turn, to be upset by similar 
discoveries. I am not sure but the after-benefits to mankind, and 
especially to labor, by precipitating the necessity of inventing 
some more efficient tool of exchanges, a scientific and more stable 
enumerator of values, would compensate for all the disaster it 
would temporarily cost. Shall we have to wait for such an acci- 
dent for the settlement of a monetary system ? 

In leaving aside these more or less transient studies, we do not 
escape from money questions. On the contrary, economics have 
become so interwoven with our whole civilized activity and specu- 
lation, that money has come to be accepted as a measure of these 
states of mind, as well as of quantitative relations of commodities. 
For example : in a general way the per-capita consumption of 
sugar readily indicates the desire of the population for sweetmeats 
(a psychic phenomenon) and their ability to gratify it (a material 
phenomenon). A decrease of the average Bank Clearing House 
exchanges is a merely quantitative statement, but its relation to 
the increase of suicides, and the decline in marriages, of which it 
is also a faithful index, is not so obvious. The difficulty with 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 5 

monetary science is that values or prices are subject to the rise and 
fall of tides of their own, to droughts and floods as compared 
with each other, and as compared with the conventional standards 
(regardless whether the standard be single or double) ; but the 
standard itself is adrift, moving now landward and now seaward, 
according to the caprices of that unstable and surface current, pub- 
lic opinion, and also to powerful undercurrents by those monarchs 
of finance, the arbitrageurs, whose hands are on all the productive 
industries and for whose benefit the rest of mankind exists and 
labors in unconscious servitude. Monetary science is not lawless, 
but its datum-points are not yet so fixed as to admit of easy refer- 
ence. Many other problems of science have been worked out of 
similar complexity, and our task is not quite so hopeless as the 
usage of centuries might suggest. Many things have become pos- 
sible within the past seventy-five years which seemed impossible 
prior to that period. 

The markets of the world are becoming, for practical purposes, 
one. This is noticeably true of the credit market, or as it is 
usually styled, the money market. The economic needs of the 
United States, as indeed of all the American peoples, as I see 
them, are not greater abundance of circulating promises to pay 
but more of the staple commodities in world-wide demand in 
which to redeem the debts already incurred. This is equivalent to 
saying that we should get out of debt, and have something left 
over of the nature of quick assets which we can part with to the 
rest of the world as occasion requires. It goes without saying 
that as to families and persons, so as to nations, our possessions 
must consist of something besides bric-a-brac and apparel, the 
fashion of which changes and the value is soon lost. The luxu- 
ries we buy from the European markets would bring but little if 
shipped back there ; in fact, without our demand, the prices would 
be lowered. Champagne, laces, fine woolens, feathers and silks 
are poor property to raise money on elsewhere. If we would get 
credit or money, or the valuable substance that stands behind 
money, we must owe less and have a greater store of the articles 
the world needs. Whether the present estimation of gold as the 
measure of exchange values is excessive or irrational, it is a fact 
to be reckoned with. It follows that the surplus should be con- 
centrated commodities, portable, exportable, and not too fragile or 
perishable in their composition, not subject to caprice of fashion, 



6 SECTION I. 

nor of restricted demand, and of these the precious metals and 
stones have, by universal consent, best filled the requirements. 

Our present civilization, is lopsided ; its contour is asymmetrical ; 
it is not abreast of the knowledge of the time, and is not yielding 
to mankind nearly the amount of comfort and well-being it might 
be made to do. From a great number of social ills, defects and 
shortcomings, due chiefly to this overlapping of the childhood of 
the world upon its adult stages, I select a few of the more serious, 
which will require many centuries to correct themselves, in order 
to raise the inquiry among you whether it is not within the com- 
pass of human endeavor to accelerate a better state not merely to 
gratify an altruistic impulse nor in fulfilment of ethical ideals, but 
as a deliberate choice of divergent policies. 



I. THE WASTE OF WARFARE AND ARMAMENT. 

Ahead of its logical order, I take up the waste of war and con- 
stant preparation for war, which has haunted mankind, with few 
and trifling exceptions, as a malign heritage as far back as we 
can trace. History, whether printed in books, written on parch- 
ment, engraved on monuments, or burned in clay tablets, seems 
to be mainly a record of combats and glorification of warriors. 
Truly enough, the overrunning and subjugation of one community 
by another of alien looks or speech was one of the most impres- 
sive and awful calamities, surpassing in its mental impress that of 
earthquakes, eclipse, drought, forest or prairie-fire, flood, or insect 
pests, because strong sinews and courage availed to give relief in 
one case, but not in the other. Training to arms was the ordinary 
occupation of life, and death by wounds, or from privations in 
camp, the exit, while the greatest honors were paid in primitive as 
n modern times to warriors. 

We need not resort to any superstitious legend to account for 
this combative instinct ; it has its analogue among the brutes 
which bristle up and stand on their guard at the coming of a 
strange figure and, in the time of scarcity, fighting for the avail- 
able supply of food, shelter or females. It is even so with man ; 
finding himself within a zone or clime-bound belt of fertility subject 
to periodical encroachments of the ice-cap from the one direction, 
and to the fierce suns and tropical growths on the other, hunting 
and fishing his principal pursuits, agriculture being nascent, there 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 7 

were ages when subsistence was precarious, when along with the 
feranaturce he was driven to the caves and trees, and had to con- 
tend for his very existence against organic and cosmic foes. The 
character of combatant, strengthened from generation to gener- 
ation, became a first nature ; he must be ever on the alert for 
a foe and for an occasional rival. Essentially gregarious, man 
could not, until very recently, associate in large numbers without 
engendering an artificial struggle for existence superposed on the 
natural. 

Until the dawn of systematic agriculture, the food products of 
a given terrain could not keep pace with the population ; not 
until the dawn of modern navigation was the drawing upon far 
distant or more fertile regions practicable ; the extinction of the 
feeble and unskilled was therefore a foregone conclusion. Even 
so lately as the time of Malthus, it was held that, nature having 
by her scheme of fecundity provided twenty partakers to her 
table spread for ten, the excess must disappear in some way by 
struggle or disease. It was not surprising that both philosophers 
and statesmen could reach the conclusion that every generation, 
or each quarter of a century, must have its great war in order to 
thin out the population to the capacity of the soil for sustaining 
it, or, otherwise to conquer enough more territory for the pur- 
pose. The tendency of this war spirit, thus kept alive, was to 
diminish the population at one end of the series in order to add to 
it at the other. It is a late discovery that this guaranty of the 
sufficiency of subsistence can be more easily and effectually ob- 
tained without fighting than with it. Aside from mutual jealousy 
of neighbor nations, or the fear of subjugation by one or more, 
the policy of fighting, in order to live, can be shown to be a colos- 
sal blunder. Man needs no longer to exterminate his own species 
to escape starvation. 

Had the ordeal of arms remained as it began with a biting, 
scratching and wrestling, not much above the wolves, in which 
brute strength, sharp claws and teeth, and endurance prevailed, 
the perpetuation of the more warlike, and the extinction of the 
peaceable, must have operated to keep man closer in physique and 
mind to the brutes. A series of inventions of weapons — the sharp- 
ened spear, then the bow or flint-tipped javelin, the arrow, the pro- 
jectile, the fulminating powder, the domestication of beasts and 



8 SECTION I. 

birds — all so many triumphs of mind in the control of natural 
forces — enabled men to ward off the cosmic dangers and to beat 
back every other possible foe. Hunger and thirst and cold he had 
to contend with, as they had ; soon he had their skins to warm 
him ; he need not hunt his dinner before eating it ; he could entrap 
it, and later employ the tame animals to help. 

This great emotional source of wars, mutual distrust, suspicion 
and aggrandizement, remains with nations, as with men. When 
each was his own advocate, judge and executioner, the fear of com 
bat was less than the fear of declining battle — the dread of a charge 
of cowardice. May we not look forward to a time when war grow- 
ing out of distrust or wounded vanity shall become as obsolete 
among civilized people as the hunting habit, the duel, or pugilism, 
to which it bears a close resemblance. Perhaps if we can demon- 
strate the absurdity, the folly and waste of it, we may do some- 
thing to banish oppressive armaments ; but the war-impulse is 
scarcely amenable to reason, or to considerations of profit and loss ; 
it is more vulnerable to ridicule and to the banishing of deep-seated 
prejudices. This power of fear, rivalry and suspicion being an in- 
herited mental trait, dating far back in man's career, nurtured by 
song and story, embellished by poetry and art, stimulated by a 
religious enthusiasm, will die slowly. Like the beliefs in fairies and 
witches, they are not to be uprooted by argument alone but must 
be outgrown. 

The devolution of the fighting trait may be traced, where one 
would least expect to find it, among the females. Women, young 
and old, higher and lower, instinctively, as we say, admire physical 
bravery, often in preference to moral courage. The very same 
badges and insignia of war stir the fierce emotions more than in the 
males. The showy uniforms, music and bearing, the plaudits of 
victory, rouse them to unwonted enthusiasm. Favor is extended 
to the side of the conquerors, disfavor to the vanquished, as eagerly 
as compassion on the wounded and dead. Unconsciously it may 
be, women are great aids to the recruiting sergeant, and to the 
gladiatorial shows, pomps, pageants and circuses. The songs of 
all nations reflect this powerful stimulus toward battle. "•J'aime 
que le militaire," "The bold soldier boy," is the tenor of them ; and, 
as if to intensify and keep alive the belligerent instinct, the boy 
children are still given weapons as playthings. Very rare are the 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. » 

plaintive song's in denunciation of war. I remember one such in 
fashion in the first half of the century. It ran something like this : 

" If I were King of France, or still better, Pope of Rome, 
I'd have no fighting men abroad, no weeping maids at home, 
But the world should be at peace; and if kings must show their 

might, 
Then should those who made the quarrels be the only ones to fight." 

Traces of the same surviving habit, grown dim from disuse, are 
found in the fainting or swooning disposition at the sight of flowing 
blood. A variation of this may be found in an attack of frenzy, 
or fury, from the same cause. This trait is also noticeable in some 
animals which are excited by the red color alone. The expression 
" war fever " is apt ; it begins in delirium and ends in lassitude 
and exhaustion. The persistence of the belief that "blood letting" 
is the natural cure for personal or social ills, is a survival of the 
same kind. The passion for military prestige — la gloire — which so 
long haunted the Romans, and later the French, and is now con- 
spicuous with their neighbors, is a fatal inheritance which lingers 
along with great intellectual power. 

When one speaks of "firing the national heart," appeal is made to 
this latent instinct, and it rouses the inbred emotions in much the 
same way as its opposite emotion, the stampede of panic. Some- 
thing of the same cruel homicidal impulse is to be seen in the old- 
fashioned "hue and cry" against alleged infractions of decency, 
loyalty or sacrilege and in the craze of mobs for lynching. Strat- 
egy and artifice may avail to divert it, or lead it to harmless issues, 
but it cannot be extinguished at the onset by threats or any reason 
short of that of exhaustion by superior force. This accentuates 
the danger, at all times along frontier lines, of an incident of en- 
croachment or insult which may serve as a spark to ignite combus- 
tibles. The great concern of statesmanship is to keep this latent 
tendency from flaming into open war. ' 'The cancer of a long peace" 
no doubt reflected a state of society in which industry was dis- 
located, when possessions were held by the strong arm, which 
indeed must have been wretched to make a state of war more tol- 
erable. 

Man will fight to expel intruders upon his domain, to resist cap- 
ture, to overcome sexual rivals, to protect his family and to pre- 
serve his altars and property. Modern wars spring more frequently 



10 SECTION I. 

from the latter than from all other causes combined ; to be secure 
in the enjoyment of property, excuses and renders possible the 
armament of advanced nations as a reserve of police force, to 
maintain domestic peace and order, although the supplies are gen- 
erally voted after artificial war scares. Holders of wealth are 
willing to be taxed to ensure tranquillity at home, even at the risk 
of personal conscription, rather than be left at the mercy of mob 
violence. Such is the irony of our civilization that some of the 
leading nations manage to combine a treble profit by fomenting or 
permitting wars in which the combatants become customers for 
arms, ships and munitions, and also for loans of money. 

An appeal to force, to establish and maintain any degree of 
equality or inequality of fortune, is a mistake. It puts force in 
the place of equity ; fixes right by might ; moreover, it fails of its 
object ; armament for domestic purposes excites alarm among 
neighbors, who have similar pretexts, and thus the Sisyphean task 
is kept up. Besides, it tends to invest property- holding per se 
with a sacredness which ought not to belong to it. 

The maxim of aggressive statesmen, that " constant prepared- 
ness for war is the best security of peace," is a seductive, danger- 
ous half-truth ; it is about equivalent to the old adage that every 
gentleman should spend an hour a day with foils and pistols to 
keep himself in practice against intruders, assassins or robbers. 
Some ultimate appeal to force, of course, there must be ; but, like 
the enforcement of decrees of courts, it should rather be in jwsse 
than in esse. 

The world presents, at the close of the century, three very in- 
structive object lessons in the policies and prospects of three con- 
tinents — Europe, Africa and America. When the first Napoleon 
made his menacing prophecy that u in fifty years Europe would be 
either all Cossack or all Republican," he indicated correctly enough 
the two opposing forces between which it is kept in unrest and 
arms. He simply underestimated the time for working out. The 
six great powers waiting for the recovery, or expiring gasp, of 
their feebler neighbors, in order to obtain a share of their estates, 
is a sad spectacle. How many more furious struggles is history 
to record for the control of the Levantine shores? What a satire 
on civilization — not to speak of Christianity — to find the youth of 
Europe armed for such wanton waste! Turkey, Austria. Greece, 
the Balkans, Spain, Holland, — is their fate to be absorption into 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 11 

a stronger empire? and if so, into which, and for how long? The 
epithet "cockpit of Europe" is one of warning to other continents. 

We are permitted to identify Germany with the dominating 
polic} 7 of Europe because it is setting the pace, assuming the role 
of fencing-master and armorer to sister states (and shamelessly 
supplies them with weapons, money and tutors to carry on the 
strife) ; and because it so successfully combines mediaeval feudal- 
ism, dynastic government, and state-church with the most advanced 
science and knowledge in the arts. Hence we find chancellors 
and reigning emperors alike claiming the usual kingly commission 
from Deity, the favor of the Almighty, but at the same time 
making open treaties with one set of powers, secret treaties with 
another set and, as if in distrust of all such allies and auxiliaries, 
providing also the heaviest battalions and best artillery. 

How unfortunate, in one sense, is the situation of the African 
continent in not being permitted to receive the blessings of Euro- 
pean civilization without its attendant curses. How much better 
it would have been to have consolidated the whole into one, or at 
most two, great commonwealths with a single republican form of 
government, one standard of lo} 7 alty, one language, religious tol- 
eration, common jurisprudence, freedom of internal commerce, 
facile postal and personal intercourse, uniform measures and coin- 
age .; instead of the partition into so many reproductions of Euro- 
pean differences of flags, creeds, politics, customs, usages, speech, 
each with its patch of shore-front and a vast tract of hinterland 
to be fortified, defended and jealously watched in perpetuity. It 
is as if by inoculation the pest-virus were poured into youthful 
arteries. The picturesque old cradle of Mediterranean civiliza- 
tion, now lying isolated from, and yet so close to, the barbaric 
types, deserved some nobler treatment from the enlightened powers 
than this selfish spoliation. The opportunity to dedicate deliber- 
ately one quarter of the globe to peace and culture apparently has 
passed forever. 

The dream of a peaceful consolidation of nations — a political 
millennium — is quite old. Fortunately, there are other potent 
forces at work making for peace. Good will and good neighborship 
are also inherent emotions. Among these may be reckoned the 
comity of nations, perhaps also religious propaganda, foreign trade 
and intercommunication. The late Secretary Blaine set a notable 
example of the peace-making impulse when he addressed his 

A 



12 SECTION I. 

eloquent words to the convened representatives of American Re- 
publics, counselling unification of policies, arbitration of disputes 
between themselves, and urging again the Fathers' doctrine of 
4 'America for Americans." 1 That invitation, for obvious reasons, 
omitted the Dominion of Canada. In any future conference it is 
to be hoped Canadians will see their way clear to participate, in 
this, as in other prerogatives of self-government, as they have a 
joint interest in the welfare of North America politically, scien- 
tifically and economically. 

That the international comity, and if you please the jubilee 
features of the year may not be neglected (in which, however, 
Science is thrust far in the background) , as an American response 
to the very hospitable suggestion of Professor Dicey — probably 
drafted before the failure of the general arbitration treaty — of a 
common citizenship for the people of Great Britain, her colonies 
and offshoots, the United States being specially included, let us 
say : unworkable though it be, it is received as an expression of 
good will. I venture to offer instead the counter proposition that 
we might have with Canada a Zollverein treaty abolishing fortifica- 
tions, fleets and custom houses along the four- thousand-mile frontier, 
letting the tariff revenues be collected at the seaports. Reciprocity 
of language, traditions, laws, coinage, metrical systems, postage 
and railroad conveniences we have. By a larger interchange of 
merchandise and ideas, together with the freest intercourse, the 
benefits to be derived by both parties are so great, that any sacri- 
fice on either side would be insignificant, temporary and easily 
borne. 

Modern warfare is becoming more and more a contest of inge- 
nuity and material resources. Numbers or physique of combat- 
ants count for less, and even personal prowess is of less importance. 
Craft in strategical manoeuvres remains as of old. Machines, ex- 
plosives, transport, commissariat, surgical skill and adjustment of 
knapsack and accoutrements are now paramount. Success depends 
also on industrial production and intellectual power. National 
debts, formerly supposed to be aids to peace, have become incen- 
tives to war; financiers often find a joint interest with diplomats, 

3 Tliis condensed motto is frequently misunderstood as implying a sort of hostile 
coalition against Europe calling for ;i hostile coalition by Europe. It is simply a 
forecasting desire not to be embroiled in European neighborhood disputes about 
boundaries, dynasties, creeds, alliances, easement-rights to ports, etc., from which 

America can keep aloof and should he encouraged to do. 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 13 

purveyors and soldiers, in fomenting or permitting wars to go near 
the point of danger for dynasties and capital. How to escape from 
the meshes of this combination is one of the most portentous and 
baffling of problems of politico- economic science. Following the 
analogy of Guaranty and Insurance corporations, it might be well 
for Europeans to invite proposals from the House of Rothschilds 
and its affiliations for a stipulated sum for which they will guaranty 
peace between the several members in lieu of the present onerous 
exactions of war loans. The financing of governments has become 
so large a vested industry that it demands the right to live, like 
some other institutions we shall have occasion to discuss, and 
society can neither get along comfortably with them nor extinguish 
them without violence. Let there be started a rumor of an inva- 
sion, blockade, or a vote for new ships and arms, by one of the 
number, the cabinets of Europe are in instant trepidation. The 
legislative assemblies at once catch the craze — up go the budgets, 
out go the contracts for munitions, and war loans, and then fluctu- 
ation in the Bourses. Somebody presently discovers it was a ficti- 
tious or exaggerated alarm, and the agitation subsides, but the 
taxes remain just the same. 

In MulhalPs recent work, " Industry and Wealth of Nations," 
are the figures of the national debts of Europe with an attempt 
to segregate that portion incurred for railroad and public works 
which latter are in many cases part of the military regime. The 
figures are impressive but fall far short of expressing the total 
money cost of armament, to say nothing of the loss of public and 
social morale. The burden of industry is thrown upon the chil- 
dren and aged women, increasing the hours of labor and lowering 
the scale of living. 

With a due sense of humiliation, we must confess that no single 
remedy can be found for this unhapp}^ tangle of affairs. Parlia- 
ments, by their Constitution, represent the opinions of ministerial 
governments, and are not themselves exempt from war-fright. It 
is a common trick of falling ministries to strengthen their hold on 
power by resort to menaces and scares. The presence of one un- 
clouded, undaunted mind at the time of panic of the multitude is a 
priceless desideratum ; it is as cheering as the advent of a cool, 
competent surgeon into a room full of hysterical bystanders around 
a prostrate patient. Presence of mind, ridicule, satire, caricature 
and especially comic cartoons are more likely antidotes than argu- 



14 SECTION I. 

ment. The disease is in good part psychic and the remedy must 
be of the same kind. 

Again, therefore, we may say science, including its socio-economic 
branches, is our best hope for peace and disarmament. The 
stoutest heart quails before a stream of electricity, hot steam, as- 
phyxiating gas or explosives rained from an air-ship. Among the 
suggestions containing more or less of promise, the following are 
worth mentioning : 

(a) The Swedish Professor Nobel, who accumulated an immense 
fortune from his nitro-glycerine inventions, has left a large fund to 
promote the extinction of war by making it so deadly that nations 
will be afraid to resort to it. Evidently when commanding generals 
are themselves brought within the range of unseen, and practically 
irrresistible, dangers, they will not be so eager to seek this method 
of promotion. 

(b) Soldier and civilian are alike interested in maintaining a 
high standard of health and efficiency, the former having more 
depending on his doing so. Selected on account of his physique, 
the soldier should have more than the average intelligence, and if 
the army regulations or the instruction of the superior officers 
teach hirn how to care for himself, to moderate his passions, and 
endure privations, it will be a small compensation for his detach- 
ment from the industrial ranks. Sanitary and personal hygiene are 
of the utmost importance to the perpetuity of armies, nations and 
races. 

(c) Continuance of the diplomatic methods, cumbrous as they 
are, must be assumed, although their function is becoming dimmer 
in the presence of telegraphs, telephones, newspapers and popular 
participation in national councils. Diplomacy has been at all times 
under suspicion of insincerity and deceit; but it has the great 
merit of defining in language the grievances and causes of war 
which gives time for passions to cool. Armies are now massed 
while diplomacy is getting ready ; collision comes before the causes 
can be stated. 

(d) Courts of Conciliation are an improvement in diplomacy in 
that they also give time for passions to subside. They do not, how- 
ever, prevent armament; and armaments are ipso facto provocative 
of hostilities. They will still be needed as against non-arbitrating 
parties. The binding force of treaties, not always scrupulously ob- 
served, is being weakened by the example of conspicuous breaches. 



ADDRESS BY RICHAKI) T. COLBURN. 15 

Great Britain and the United States may creditably vie with each 
other in setting the world an example of this mode of preventing 
and settling disputes. 

(e) . To the above, I would fain offer a further suggestion aimed 
at those who have the responsibility of deciding upon war or peace. 
The actual ruler, whether it be a parliamentary body, or a Presi- 
dent or Chief Secretary, King or Chief Minister, Kaiser or Chan- 
cellor, Sultan or Vizier, should be required to obtain the sanction 
of some deliberative body, not of his own creation or selection. In 
addition, every such officer should be required, by fundamental 
law, to surrender his office, authority and emoluments into the 
hands of such an assembly, at intervals diminishing progressively 
with the duration of his reign ; such council or parliament to be 
at full liberty to restore it, further limit it, or to confer it upon a 
successor. Such a check upon the inebriety of power and incident 
flattery is needed as a safeguard against aberration of intellect or 
perversion of moral balance. The temptation and strain upon the 
faculties of one who is the fountain of honors and promotions ought 
not to be imposed without some such restraint. The tendency to 
hero-worship is truly a psychological taint, pregnant with dangers 
enough in the populace and positively ruinous when reflected on a 
single mind not chosen for robustness. 

In this momentous struggle of medieval types against popular 
forms of government in continental Europe, occupied by three mil- 
lions of armed men, and seven to ten millions more subject to call, 
the Britons and Americans jointly owe a duty to the cause of 
civilization and peace, not to be swayed into the same mad folly. 

II. DECADENCE OF RACES. 

The abstraction of numbers by warfare and the privations of 
army life, vast as they were, do not account for the decline and 
degradation of the great empires of the past. Besides, decay seems 
to overtake the conquering as well as the conquered race ; and 
there are instances where the enslaved have become in turn en- 
slavers. Mere numbers are not strength nor tenacity of nations : 
witness the Hindoos. The old Greeks were not numerous, but 
what they lacked in numbers they made up in vigor and sagacity. 

What are these other causes of premature decay ? In other words, 
is there a natural term of life for races, as for individuals — a cycle 
of growth, maturity and senility? Dr. Charles Pearson, in his work 



16 SECTION I. 

on the " Life and Character of Nations," has attempted to answer 
these questions and, in addition to other minor causes, traces the 
decline to an inherent difference of stamina or staying power in the 
ethnic divisions of mankind, corresponding to our present external 
classification of races by color of skin and hair. The startling con- 
clusion he reaches is that the swarthy or dark-skinned races are 
destined to outlast, and of course supplant, the lighter- skinned or 
Aryan group. The evidence is scanty and inconclusive ; but it is 
significant and carries us back directly to the interesting contro- 
versy now waging between Professor Weissman and his critics as 
to the quality of the germ-plasma and its transmission without im- 
pairment or improvement, into which we cannot here enter. The 
rival hypotheses of Galton and Cope deal, however, with problems 
belonging to the sociologist as well as to the zoologist and micros- 
copist. 

The doom of the light-skinned races, according to Pearson, is 
fixed, for it is not to be averted even by admixture. The bearing 
of purity of race on its persistency is far from being worked out. 
So far it goes to show the active dominant types are mixed ; while 
the purer races are few, isolated, and nearly stationary in civili- 
zation. Whether these differences be due to reversion of ancestral 
types — atavism — or to the greater complexity of organization and 
nerve-strain, is an interesting study which we must ask the biolo- 
gist and somatologist to elucidate for us. 

Just why the builders of Assyrian Phoenician Nile valley, Yuca- 
tan, Grecian temples, thousands of years ago, have not left their 
qualities to their descendants, may be due to other causes than 
the stability of the somatic cell or to intermarriage ; for instance, 
denudation of forests, inroads of infectious or contagious disease, 
insect pests, errors in diet, the warrior occupation, or a combina- 
tion of all in greater or less degree. The higher types of men seem 
to have arisen along the broken coast line, or in the moderately 
elevated regions. The great plains or steppes have not been fa- 
vorable to density or quality of population or to courage or vitality. 
The liability to periodical prairie-grass or forest fires may have 
stunted the development of men and animals alike. Meteorological 
conditions are important to flora and fauna ; the annual mean of 
sunshine, the precipitation of moisture, the range of extreme tem- 
perature, and the degree of humidity are factors of survival in the 
oeography of races. The more northerly seem to prevail over those 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 17 

nearer the equator, — provided we do not go too far north— due al- 
lowance being made for the modifying influence of ocean-currents 
and altitude above sea level, the lines being not exactly isothermal 
but hygrometric. Singularly enough there are notable exceptions 
to this rule. In the dry deserts of Arabia are to be found, among 
a population of Bedouins, chiefs of noble mien and splendid form, 
descended apparently without dilution from a remote ancestry. So 
in Abyssinia, almost a hermit nation, as Slatin Bey tells us, the 
natives combine great physical endurance and courage, under 
the most adverse surroundings of plant life and notwithstanding 
the general prevalence of syphilis, long supposed to be an escutch- 
eon of civilized mixed races, and a very sword of destruction. The 
example of the Jews so frequently cited in favor of purity of race is 
important evidence, but complicated with other than ethnic factors, 
such as the Levitical code of hygiene, the rite of circumcision, the 
confraternity caused by ostracism, restricted occupations and social 
temptations, each of which plays a part in the endurance of races. 
As a matter of fact, the population of thgse nations which make 
enumerations has largely increased since 1815 ; but this has been 
made possible by the opening of new sources of food supplies, for 
which exchanges of manufactures have been given. In spite of 
the migration of more than twenty millions to distant parts of the 
world (America chiefly) , every considerable area has increased its 
own numbers ; and it is only quite recently that France, the sole ter- 
ritory where emigration is practically nil, or less than the immi- 
gration, is found to be stationary or slightly declining. There is a 
well-founded suspicion that what is now happening to France will, 
in due time, happen to the others from the same causes. Is the 
fate of Rome, Carthage, Venice, Thebes, to be repeated? Ma- 
caulay's New Zealander sketching the ruins of London Bridge is 
prophecy alluring to the historian, but it also finds ready acceptance 
among social philosophy essayists, who offer, however, the most di- 
vergent array 1 of moving causes, such as the decline of marriage, 
vaccination, flesh eating, narcotics, condiments, degeneracy, iced 
drinks, sewerage, irreligion, destruction of caste distinctions, etc., 
etc. 

1 Mr. G. A. Read, for instance, finds in the proneness to alcohol and narcotics, an 
artificial ordeal exterminating those least able to carry their load of poison. 

It was reserved for Mr. Brooks Adams to discover that the scarcity of the circulating 
medium (in this case the depreciation of white metal is in mind) was decimating the 
whole race. 

2 



18 SECTION I. 

Unless we assume that there is in each new birth a redemptive 
power, a dropping of the taints of parentage, the human race ought 
logically to have come to an end long ago. In some way, as yet ob- 
scure to us, in which natural selection plays its part, health must 
be catching as well as disease ; otherwise the major and minor pes- 
tilences would have brought a quietus. Phthisis is a comparatively 
modern disorder. Cancer is another of the internal lesions com- 
ing to be known as induced diseases of the blood which may be 
carried about to all climes and propagated with fatal facility. 
Whether the special bacillus starts the decay of the lung tissues or 
follows as a sequence of the decay, seems to be still in doubt. 
Pathologists are just now enamored of the theory of antitoxine in- 
oculation — a sort of tame medical ferret sent in to combat the 
invading rodent organism. If this is our best hope, the ravages of 
tuberculous, cancerous and febrile ailments leave civilized races but 
a short respite. 

The researches of Sternberg and Metclmikoff into the function of 
the leucocytes as guardians of the normal state of arterial currents 
are more intelligible and logical, — if the hypothesis of phagocytosis 
shall be established — as this leaves the work of eradication of the 
blood deterioration in the hands of the organism itself, not wholly 
beyond human control, makes it largely an affair of metabolism of 
food into living cells with a counterpart activity of the emunc- 
tories. The function of the ductless glands in the formation of 
these blood cells is the corner of histology and pathology now 
awaiting special researches, and from which we may expect refresh- 
ing relief from the antiquated fetish theory of antagonizing drugs. 

History concurs with physiology and with statistics in the view 
that civilization is not favorable to marriage and fecundity, though 
it may be more propitious for the rearing of offspring. In spite of 
the surcharge of sex-passion which nature has thrust upon men, 
and the equally enticing wiles and coquetry of women, most of 
whom must look to marriage as a career, it is more and more of a 
failure. Polyandry and polygamy are being crowded out by mon- 
ogamy, but the philosopher is tempted to ask whether monogamic 
union and the family as we know them are also to disappear ; 
and, if so, what will take their place. Shall it be a return to cel- 
ibate asceticism, or a resort to the state as foster mother? 

For some occult reason it is not as easy to be born into the 
world, now and here, under civilized conditions, as formerly under 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 19 

semi- civilized. The proportion of still-born may be less in our 
days than formerly; it probably is, but the infant mortality is 
greater. The mortality of parturition increases alarmingly not- 
withstanding aseptic devices. One may well ask why the partu- 
rition of the homo sapiens is attended with so much hazard? 
Whether the civilized man habitually mates at a later period in life 
than the savage, after the pelvic bones and ligaments have lost 
much of their elasticity, or that a larger cerebral development of 
the modern infant, out of proportion to the bony or muscular 
framework, renders him less viable ; or whether the replacement of 
the earlier sagefemme b}~ an accoucheur with his case of instruments 
and anaesthetics, is more responsible for the increased mortality, we 
leave to gynecologists to decide. The change of both sexes to in- 
door employment in shops and factories, rather than arduous la- 
bors out doors, accounts for some of the loss. The net result in 
grandchildren may be the same as for prehistoric man by reason 
of better care during the period of adolescence. 

If our census statistics are trustworthy, prudential as well as 
physiological causes are at work in the same direction. Families 
do not arrive so early, nor in such quantity, as in primitive life. 
The perpetuity of the race is left to the unthinking classes. The 
aversion to child-bearing crops out (especially in large cities) in 
various ways. The practice of abortion, very common in Asiatic 
countries, and suspected to be very prevalent in Europe and 
America, proceeds of course from prudential or economic consid- 
erations, fashion, or avoidance of social penalties. We know that 
the advent of girl children to the Chinese and some other peoples 
is looked upon as misfortune ; as might be expected, foeticide and 
infanticide are common. Fear of want, love of pleasures and 
varieties, dread of pain and risk of death, the handicap in mat- 
ter of house renting, awe of the religious authority, — all play their 
part in this great matter of diminishing population, which has 
engaged the attention of the French savans and legislators, and 
the sacerdotal government of Quebec. 1 

The optimist queries : "Why worry about the extinction of 
the human race?" which reminds one of the American Plato's 
reply when told by an Adventist that the end of the world was at 

ir rhe birth rate of the New England states ranges it seems between IS and 22.5 
per mille while that of the far West states is still less, or less than that of France, 
and being lower than the death rate means, unless redressed, ultimate extinction. 



20 SECTION I. 

baud, viz. : that "he could get along very well without it." The 
question whether perpetuity of race is desirable, is equivalent to 
asking whether anything human is worth preserving. It is an- 
swered by science and ethics alike : whatever may be the rights of 
the individual over his own life, the plain inference from study of 
nature is that parents exist more for the sake of children than 
children for parents ; life is essentially a sacrifice of the passing 
for the coming link. The more serious query for us is to know 
how it may be lengthened, or extinction avoided. Not one of us 
cares to be of a declining or prematurely dying race. 1 

Gratification of the gustatory nerves, located at the back of the 
tongue (which is not at all identical with the appeasing of hunger) , 
together with the convivial propensity of man, a corollary of his 
gregariousness, is responsible for a part of his shortened longevity. 
It has its double aspect of physiological and psychical influence. 
No people suspect their daily food, or beverage, to be harmful ; 
for the most part they would as soon tolerate criticism of their 
religion, their patriotism, their wives, as their bill of fare, but each 
in turn freely expresses his contempt for the table of the others. 
Is there not some underlying vice in the habitual food of the civ- 
ilized world, which, of course, includes its preparation? Of the 

1 On this very point an interesting and instructive bit of testimony has recently 
come to hand. 

The opportunity of studying the aboriginal life of these interesting islanders in the 
Pacific Ocean is passing before our anthropologists, and physiologists have extracted 
the whole lesson for the benefit of learning. The British Government recently ap- 
pointed a commission to examine into the decline of the population of the Feejee 
Islands. The proceedings, intensely amusing, might have been more instructive had 
it been composed in part of trained feminine obstetricians. The inquiry disclosed a 
birth rate surprisingly high, much higher than the average of Europe, and a death 
rate still higher, and all sorts of reasons were offered to account for it; as it was a 
concomitant of the coming of the Caucasian race, the onus fell on traders and mis- 
sionaries. The testimony of an elderly accoucheuse, familiar with both conditions, 
revealed the fact that the native women had become indifferent to the obliteration of 
their own people, and this because the joyousness and sans souci had been taken out 
of their lives; a sense of sin had been introduced and these Gardens of the Hesper- 
ideshad been turned into vales of tears and disciplinary plantations, workshops and 
hospitals for which the hopes of a celestial reward ai'e deemed no compensation. 
The same lesson is to be drawn from the Hawaiian group; the advent of the superior 
race is fatal not merely to the life of the inferior race, but the sad grind of money get- 
ting, the worry of competition, and modern fashions is fatal to contentment. 

Is it not even so, in a degree, with our competitive civilization and religious creeds 
in Christendom itself, and in Buddhist lands? Have they not cast an artificial gloom 
over lives that would be full enough of sadness without them? What a pity that some 
effort lias not been made to discover the source of that uncomplaining stolidity of the 
red skin papoose as I have often seen it, carried on the back of its mother; or of the 
general glee and absence of painful cries in the Japanese babies as compared with 
those of the Western lands. 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 21 

grass seeds which furnish the staple for the bulk of the world, rice 
constitutes at least half. Christendom prefers the wheat, rye or 
maize, which we esteem as the superior grain ; yet the Chinese and 
Japanese contrive somehow to nourish stout sinews, though more 
diminutive bones, and acute brains and courageous hearts out of 
the blander grain without recourse to much animal food. Their 
superior recuperative power in hospital against injuries and lesions 
of disease is notable. The conquering quality of British tribes is 
believed to be due to the ample ration of beef ; of the German to 
his of beer and sausage ; of the Mediterranean littoral, to their free 
use of wine. To modern science we are indebted for the explan- 
ation that the decoction of the coffee berry by the Levantines and 
of the tea leaf by the Mongols for ages has probably contributed to 
their survival, by supplying a boiled or fermented liquid, which was 
doubtless comparatively more free from morbific bacterial organ- 
isms than were the polluted wells from which the water was drawn, 
in those densely crowded and ancient abodes. The medical view 
that life is shortened more by over-eating than by starvation, in 
its ordinary sense, is confirmed by the chemist's laboratory tests, 
and by the spectacle of contrasted races. Can we not, while im- 
parting our science, philosophy and literature to the Chinese and 
Japanese, take a lesson or two from them on diet, and perhaps on 
clothing and house furnishing also ? Their comparative exemption 
from phthisis, insanity and neurasthenia alone should put us upon 
our inquiry. 

A leading American physician has said, more or less jocosely, 
that the coming man compared with the present, will be a big 
headed, small bodied, puny limbed, bald, toothless, spectacled and 
toeless creature subsisting on concentrated foods, to which we may 
add the qualifying remark that he will not keep coming for any 
long period. The fate of that people where teeth and eyes decay, 
and dentistry and opticians flourish is not at all conjectural. It 
concerns the student of physiology and sociology alike to ascertain 
what causes are at work impairing the digestive organs, the teeth 
and eyes of civilized peoples, and in what respects the as yet un- 
civilized have a manifest advantage. 

Making due allowance for the power of accommodation of the 
system whereby blood and tissues are made out of so wide a range 
of food- stuffs, the conviction forces itself upon us, seeing the ef- 
fect of alimentation upon plants and animals, that while the norm 



22 SECTION I. 

may be a shifting one from youth to age, there is a norm, and that 
deviations from it must tell upon the vigor and endurance of the 
race. The very general use of salted and smoked meats for ex- 
ample : has not that had much to do with the increase of gouty 
and rheumatic affections, usually attributed to acid fruits or wines? 
This practice could easily be dispensed with, by the use of cold 
storage and desiccation. 

Then again, the civilized man, and especially the woman half of 
him, habitually lives in a warmer, closer atmosphere than the savage. 
Have not our air-tight houses, with their stoves, steam-pipes, fur- 
naces and weather strips contributed not a little to diseases of 
the respiratory organs? Nay, the presence of a cellar under the 
dwelling rooms is a suspicious coadjutor. Then there are the 
germ-dust gathering carpet, curtains, portieres, plush furniture, — 
are they not in some degree responsible for the spread of patho- 
genic bacteria upon tissues already weakened by defective nutri- 
tion ? 

An English physician, lecturing to a recent graduating class, as 
reported in the Lancet, ironically said, by way of caution against 
excess of confidence, that u the average life of a fact in physiology 
is about four years." Intended as a reproach upon the practising 
medico for his running after new therapeutic discoveries, it is also 
an encouragement and a compliment, that one error can be run 
down, and superseded, it may be, by another, in so short a space 
as four years. Alas ! it takes a much longer period, on the average, 
to exterminate some of the so-called facts of social and political 
science. 

III. PERNICIOUS COMPETITION. 

Professor Cairnes happily hit off one of the most salient features 
of the literature of Political Economy, of the passing generation 
at least, when he styled it k ' a more or less handsome apology for 
the present state of things." One cannot but feel that it has 
been for the most part a thrashing over of old straw, and even 
now with enormous output of printed matter, there is very little 
beyond a rehash of the old controversies about wages, funds, 
rent, balance of trade, incidence of taxation and so on. Writers 
divide themselves into three classes, each of them defective with- 
out the other two : the historians and academicians who have gone 
over the writings of their predecessors and who know but little of 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 23 

the business of the world ; the statisticians who put faith in their 
ability to reckon up into tabular form, that which is incomputa- 
ble, as well as that which is, and whose industry is out of all pro- 
portion to its value for scientific use ; then there are the enthusi- 
asts, who are profoundly dissatisfied with the present distribution 
of wealth or the conditions of industry, and who can propound 
schemes of reform and then turn the older arguments and figures 
round as upon a swivel in support of the ideals. Doctrinaires, who 
for the most part write the treatises and books about finance and 
trade, know but little of the world about them ; while the bankers, 
arbitrageurs and movers of the world's crops and tonnage are too 
busy to write about what they understand. The result is the liter- 
ature of political economy is about one generation behind the 
practice. Especially is this true of international finance. 

The n< i w world having a virgin territory to occupy and improve 
has run in debt to the old somewhat recklessly. The burden of 
interest and repayment of the capital is irksome. Extension of 
the debt at low rates is dependent on capacity to pay if demanded. 
So long as we are handicapped with this mountain of debt, it is in 
the power of a few foreign holders of our promises, or titles to 
property, to bring on a panicky feeling at any time they choose — 
though fortunately it is not for their interest to do so — but the 
time may come when it will be. Besides this hampering of debt, 
there has been an unconscious extravagance, of which we shall 
have more to say when we speak of the tendency of luxury. In a 
wholesale way. we have been exchanging our liens on and evi 
deuces of ownership of lands, timber, railroads, manufactories, 
mines, breweries and the like for shiploads of merchandise, the 
bulk of which we should ha ye been the better for not having at all, 
and nearly all of which we might have made for ourselves To 
get square will cost us hard work and self denial. With the ex- 
ception of this broad distinction of debtor and creditor nations, 
and of the latter supplying articles in which there is limited com- 
petition, all the world is engaged in a general scramble in which 
cheapness of production is the goal. The industry of nations has 
developed into a species of hostile contest, not quite so hazardous 
as actual warfare, but demoralizing and exhausting in a less de- 
gree only. It is as if all marches were required to be forced 
marches ; and all business must be conducted on the brink of the 
precipice of bankruptcy. It was always so within the confines of 



24 SECTION I. 

a given territory ; but the substitution of steam for animal power, 
and of dextrous machinery for handicraft, has not only intensified 
the competition within the old boundaries, but has also set the 
maritime nations to trying to undersell each other. In this con- 
test for cheapness, staDdards of living, hours of labor, habits of 
frugality, depth of purse, vigor of body and acuteness of mind, 
all have their part to play, and the efficiency and economy of gov- 
ernment, stability of institutions, probity of character, are also 
pitted against each other. Individually and collectively, an ordeal, 
growing more and more severe, confronts all trade, agriculture 
and manufactures. When the five hundred millions of Eastern 
Asia shall have grasped our mechanical inventions, it is idle to 
suppose the occidental standard of living can be maintained if the 
regime of unrestrained competition is to continue. 

This is*the crux of the labor problem, and also in large part of 
the commercial and financial problem. To the older writers aim- 
ing their arguments against the arbitrary, and often absurd re- 
straints of trade by statute, it seemed as if perfect freedom of 
trade was an ideal state of things, to usher in a millennium. The 
question has become too broad for local statutes. Freedom of 
trade breeds extravagance, improvidence, overproduction, followed 
by panic, depression, enforced idleness, discontent, and so on in 
recurring cycles. The struggle is too keen ; it is the cosmic strug- 
gle for existence intensified, socially wasteful and destructive. 
Too many men are in trade; too many trying to "live on their 
wits," with the result that the peasantry of all nations are being- 
worked too hard, and robbed of their share of the gross product. 
Less than half the population of Christendom is at work, half of 
those in agriculture, fifteen per cent in professions and public 
service, while ten per cent are in trade and transportation. Left 
to itself, we may be sure that by natural selection, the weaker in 
trade will be forced to the wall, and the few fittest will survive, 
but the competition will not stop ; that must go on unless some 
general corrective is discovered. The tendency in domestic trade 
may be found in the mammoth Department Stores which are surely 
crowding out their smaller competitors, and this results in such 
dislocation of trade from its usual channels as to engage the at- 
tention of legislatures and turn elections. It is obviously the 
fact that in nearly every city or town there are about five times 
as many merchants in a given line of business as are necessary, 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 25 

each with its corps of clerks, bookkeepers, delivery wagons, etc. 
If the saving of a concentration is shared with the customers, as 
it certainly is in practice, the community of buyers will have no 
reason to complain, but it is otherwise with the producers and 
manufacturers who must submit to the prices dictated by the big 
concerns, who are frequently able to take the whole product or 
refuse any. The power of concentrated capital and marshalling 
of labor, which has been going on in mechanical occupations, has 
now spread into trade, shipping, finance and even into educational 
pursuits. The smaller rivals are seeking shelter with the larger 
ones, by absorption or alliance to escape a worse fate, as we noted 
in the case of political aggregations. This has led to consolida- 
tions and leagues under the name of Trusts or other fiduciary 
contrivances. Railroads cannot escape from being dragged into 
this pernicious rivalry ; they are under control of their patrons 
rather than of their stockholders. The legislatures, sustained by 
the highest courts, say they shall not combine a in restraint of 
trade ;" though they are reluctant to cut each other's throats in 
competition, they are compelled to keep in the game at the same 
rapid pace as their customers. Regimentation and coercion in 
labor, hardly less intolerable than regimentation and obedience in 
militarism are threatened unless some remedy can be devised. 
Laissez /aire points towards a cruel and despotic struggle which 
is discouraging in the extreme ; nor is there in the province of 
legislation apparently any adequate relief. 

The step from a status of slavery to that of serfdom with a 
claim on the land for subsistence was important ; the evolution 
from that to voluntary contract was equally so, and no people 
holding to either of the former systems of labor can hope to con- 
tend against the latter. But the regime of free contract is hardly 
a finality. The rankest injustice is perpetrated under its forms, 
all over the world, where proprietary rights are acknowledged. It 
is, of course, far better to require the consent of laborer and em- 
ployer, but with this consent great wrongs are possible — are in- 
deed common. This is a very grave question in social science — 
u how to put a curb on astuteness," as a magazine writer has styled 
it ; how to shield the weaklings and credulous from spoliation by 
the crafty and unscrupulous. How shall the ignorant and con- 
fiding part of the population be safeguarded against overreach- 



26 SECTION I. 

ing. temptations, wiles and wares set for them, and for each other, 
without opening the door to still greater evils ? These lures are 
of all sorts and degrees from the knave who offers to sell coun- 
terfeit money, or lotion to beautify the complexion, to the banks, 
insurance and trust companies of many kinds ; nor are the learn- 
ed professions above setting traps for the unwary, or of suborning 
the press into becoming accessories. Look at the enormous out- 
lays for advertising proprietary medicines, which debauch and be- 
fog the public conscience, if they do not injure the public health. 1 
It is not easy to suggest a rectification of the evils of unbridled 
competition, especially where statutory restraint is either aggrava- 
tive or impotent. With some hesitation I venture to point out 
some of the underlying causes of our trouble. 

1 H. J. Davenport, in his recently published " Outlines of Economic Theory," 
tersely sums up the evils of competition in trade : 

"The stimulus of private interest works out in a vast amount of crime and disor- 
der which necessitates, in policemen, courts, juries, sheriffs and lawyers, the expen- 
diture of social energies. Likewise in purely private affairs the expense of preven- 
tive methods against ill-faith and dishonesty is a weighty matter. Outlays of this 
sort would be relatively small in the collectivist S3'stem. There are large wastes of 
energy in competitive attempts to give to cheapness the outside gloss of value. 
Shoddy in cloth, paper in-soles in shoes, clay in soap, marl in sugar, not only waste 
the energy of putting them in, but largely destroy the usefulness of the honest prod- 
uct. Socially speaking all this cheapness is excessively dear. 

There is a similar compound of waste in the enormous outlay for newspaper puff- 
ing and lying. The entire system, also, of marketing through agents and commer- 
cial travellers has in it large elements of waste. The excessive multiplication of 
middlemen generally falls under the same head. 

The present system is also responsible for hordes of human beings living by their 
wits or their worthlessness — social make-nothings, paupers, vagabonds, speculators 
of useless types, prostitutes. Parallel with these are the respectable do-nothings, 
the leisure rich, the inheritors of wealth, the coupon-cutters. Within this class of 
respectable make-nothings must be reckoned also the valets and waiting maids, the 
outriders, hostlers, servants and flunkies whose energies never work out in any util- 
ity, for which the world has any real need. And in a background of misery stand the 
unemployed, with whom, as misery, we are not at present concerned, but only as 
waste. Never an inconsiderable class, they swell in times of depression to an enor- 
mous army." 

"Fashion demoralizes industry and fosters starvation. Warehouses are filled with 
commodities to supply a demand that has vanished, or to forestall a demand which 
never appears. Disaster and ruin result. A novelty strikes the popular fancy; there 
follow immense profits, intense production, multiplied factories, prosperous allied 
industries, growing cities, iniloeking laborers, investment, speculation. Fashion 
grows cold when the commodity becomes cheap and plenty; then failure, closed 
factories, cancelled capital, collapsed boom, idleness, hunger and riot. Almost all 
industrial centres know something of this experience. All over the world there are 
Nottinghams regretting a banished lace industry. The foe of industrial peace is 
ebb and flow, change and uncertainty. Fashion in commodities is parent to business 
gambling, great fortunes, great losses, feverish activity, feverish lassitude, fluctuation 
and bankruptcy " (pp. 305 et 8eq.). 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 27 

First, let me ask " why do men engage in and remain in trade ; 
or enter upon any of the professions?" The usual answer is, " to 
earn a livelihood ;" but this is not all. In civilization certainly 
there is the further motive of a desire to succeed, to become a 
master in the craft if possible, and whether or no, to amass some 
surplus of possessions as a provision for old age, to win society 
prizes, to dower daughters, start sons in business, perhaps found 
a house, endow a charity, build a monument, or leave a fortune, all 
of which motives are of the mind. We each of us see, or think we 
see, the wisdom or necessity for any one or more of these aims and 
purposes in life. Men and women are the slaves of ideas, and 
words stamp ideas so firmly on the average mind that they are with 
difficulty dislodged. What different ideas are conveyed by the 
words "success in life!" Not one in a thousand analyzes the 
thought to see its relativity or instability. If there were no need 
for a provision for old age, or for charity bequests, the extra in- 
dustry would be needless too. If there were not the ambition to 
win, to excel, to outrun or outgather, the tremendous exertion of 
the rivalry would be stupid. Partial attempts are made to do away 
with the necessity for individual provision for the inlirmities of old 
age by providing retiring pensions for the army, and in some coun- 
tries for civil officers also. For those not directly in the service of 
the state, poorhouses (which are too often poor homes) are estab- 
lished by law ; and some states now propose to aid by labor pen- 
sions also. These arrangements are the just and necessary sequel 
of a state of things where human life and vigor are sacrificed whole- 
sale in the strife for cheap production. 1 

Second. — The eradication of the vanity of emulation, the desire 
for distinction, may be more difficult, but something might be 
effected in that direction. Suppose, for the occasion, that there 
were no prizes to run for, there would be less racing ; I mean not 
material trophies, but the distinctions and adulations of winning 
in any contest, athletic, professional or social. If, by some happy 

1 Mr. Plimsoll convinced his government that near -2,000 sailors' lives were reck- 
lessly lost yearly through overloading. We may note in passing that the need of 
such provision is seldom found among proprietors of the soil, small or large; the 
farm is the savings hank and, in the hands of a practical farmer, a very good one. 
Neither is the working farmer often spurred by the ambition or vanity "to cut a 
figure" or win some distinction in the society ranks. 11 himself or family takes a 
premium at the county fair, it is as a sort of contribution to the common enjoyment, 
and not as a distinction of social caste, nor does he require the relief of pauper acts 
in old age. 



28 SECTION I. 

contrivance, as much pains were taken to encourage confraternity 
and equality of estimation as are now taken to encourage leader- 
ship, and dissimilarity of estimation, would not much of the social 
strife and worry disappear? Within the family such inequalities 
are generally frowned upon. Can we not extend the ethics of 
the family beyond its pale to the whole social organism? The 
idolizing tendency of human nature is one not to be proud of or 
stimulated, but rather to be repressed. Why would it not be well 
to commence with infancy, in school or business, and abolish all 
prizes, honors and bribes of every sort for simple good conduct, 
or for doing one's best? Where there are winners there must also 
be losers ; and for the latter there is very little regard outside the 
family, which discouragement is of itself conducive to further fail- 
ure, bitterness, malice or suicide. The office should seek the man 
rather than go to the persistent intriguer or shameless u hustler." 
Aside from the fostering of an unwholesome sense of superiority, 
does not the whole practice of merit marks and competitive ex- 
aminations of our schools and colleges work badly, in favor of a 
certain superficial readiness of mind which will have advantage 
enough over a less precocious maturity without conventional 
badges? The honors and emoluments of public and private 
station go together, a duplication of pay. It is one of the most 
sombre traits of the older civilizations surviving in great vigor, 
the readiness to tail into line obediently behind the nominal 
leader. When physical prowess was the surest road to distinc- 
tion, the sway of one-man power was a necessity. In these days 
of deliberative assemblies of quasi-equals, it is a vestige of former 
subservience. Perfect equality of mind, or stature, Ave shall not 
have ; but there is no justification for putting the tall man on 
stilts and lopping off the shorter ones. This is just what our 
present civilization is blamable for doing. The winner if only by 
a nose length, or by a scratch, is elevated out of all proportion 
to his excellence. If we must "play pretend" at all, why not 
minimize the differences between coadjutors, rather than exagger- 
ate them ? Some may declare that all men not being alike they 
cannot be treated alike. Certainly not, but we ought not to 
magnify or multiply the rewards for the superiority which, if it does 
exist, nature is sufficiently discriminative without the help of social 
man. 

Third. Corollary to the provision for maintenance in old age 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 29 

or disability is the necessity for some system of more constant 
and steady employment prior to decrepitude. At the best of times 
fully ten per cent of able bodied laborers, mechanical or factory 
hands, are living in enforced idleness, and in times of depression, 
the percentage is very much higher. The difficulty here too is in 
part psychical. It is not enough that the laborer wanting work 
and the employer wanting work done succeed in finding each other ; 
the latter must be satisfied not only as to the wage he can pay 
out, but also as to the character of the proposing laborer ; he does 
not want to introduce discontent or disorder among his men. This 
trust or confidence is almost impossible in an idle population 
drifting across a continent. Without going so far as to affirm the 
right of the willing laborer, even if he have a family depending on 
his exertions, to employment by the state ; still the community has 
him and his family to support in some way ; why not do so in a 
systematic and economical way ? It may be said that it would dis- 
courage saving habits, but the present plan does worse ; it begets 
a lack of sympathy. If every county in each State (it would oper- 
ate badly to have it in some and not in others adjacent) were to 
lay out, in advance some useful public work, sufficient to employ 
the quota of discharged laborers, at a bare living wage, to prevent 
tumult and pillage, credit being resorted to if necessary, the posi- 
tive benefits might not be so great, but the unseen damage might 
be averted. Central Park in New York City owes its existence to 
an impromptu politic stratagem of this sort ; and there is not a 
city or county that might, not resort to similar works of transport, 
embellishment or sanitary aids, greatly to its advantage, and thus 
mitigate the severity of panic waves. 

IV. SPENDTHRIFT LUXURY. 

Travelers in the Swedish-Norwegian peninsula concur in opin- 
ion as to the high general average of thrift and contentment exist- 
ing in spite of the uncongenial climate, the paucity of manufactures 
for export, and the presence of an aristocracy and a considerable 
standing army. The extremes of riches and poverty are not so 
great. What a pity that this Scandinavian secret of contentment 
can not be made available in our more fortunate lands ! True, 
there is a large consumption of ardent spirits, but the humid cli- 
mate may account for it, or diminish its worst effects. Then the 



30 SECTION I. 

ratio of illegitimate births is high, but this is not to be charged to 
moral laxity of the women so much as to restraint laid upon the 
marriage of the young men by Army and Church. No very com- 
plete explanation of this Utopian satisfaction is offered beyond a 
pervading high literary standard due to excellent public schools ; 
to a general and steady industry on the part of the whole popula- 
tion, male and female, young and old ; and the absence of preten- 
tious and ostentatious displays of wealth. The latter may be due 
to an anxiety to escape the tax gatherer ; but it is refreshing to 
find one instance where the more liberal education coexists with 
industry and contentment, which it is fashionable in some coun- 
tries to regard as incompatible. The same thing is true of Hol- 
land, which, however, lays the world under tribute by its floral 
tubers and Spice Island colonies ; but Dutch thrift has made her a 
solvent creditor nation, and in time of stress she has but to sell 
her investments to draw from others. Other examples might be 
cited, Switzerland for one. The lesson to be deduced is the same : 
that industry, thrift, frugality, are the cure for hard times, for inter- 
national competition, and contribute to good morals and stability 
of social order and progress. 

By way of contrast take the example of Americans. There 
are, in Greater New York, at least ten thousand families besides 
the young patrons of restaurants and hotels to a much larger 
number, who will eat spring chicken and spring lamb in spring 
months, strawberries from March until June, and then take up 
some other premature fruit (without once tasting a really perfect 
berry), who are totally unconscious that they are indulging in any 
extravagance. The same class in cities all over the land demands 
the steak cut from the middle of the ox's anatomy and scorns 
that from before and behind it at half the price. The expendi- 
ture of the Americans for spirituous liquors is about the same as 
the British, and equals the cost, to the consumer, of the whole 
wheat consumption. The same is true of tobacco which is a mas- 
culine waste. The outlay for domestic service is a large item, 
and a considerable amount of it must be set down either to lux- 
ury or enfeebled homemakers. The loss from household waste is 
notoriously exorbitant. I do not grudge the household and farm 
help all the compensation it gets — for, if well and conscientiously 
done, the cook is certainly as worthy of his hire as the doctor 
— especially if the one would not play into the hands of the 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 31 

other. It is truthfully said that the average Freuch family would 
live from the waste and refuse of an American, and we might add 
that two Japanese families could subsist upon it. Nor is the 
lavish outlay confined to the table alone ; it embraces nearly every 
item of expense. The aggregate cost of dress, in cities, may not 
be too large for the individual purse, but it exhausts what might 
be surplus for investment. So of house furnishing, pin-money, 
amusements and adornments. America, it is stated, takes dia- 
monds equal to the whole product of the South African mines ; 
furthermore the product could be greatly increased but is pur- 
posely restricted to what the world's markets will take at an upset 
price. In other words, the price of this commodity, we will call 
it, is "rigged" for us, while the grain, meats, and fibres we sell in 
exchange are parted with at prices made by competition with the 
poorest- paid labor of the world. Supposing a great war to break 
out and we should be obliged to realize on these ''investments," as 
silly people pretend they are, they would not bring fifty per cent 
of their first cost to import. Nationally speaking, I suppose the 
gold and silver mining shares sold abroad will be regarded as a 
fair offset for any trickery of that sort. 

Living, or rather working, in the commercial metropolis of the 
continent, where is landed eighty per cent, in value of the impor- 
tations of fabricated wares, I am continually impressed with the 
prodigality of our expenditures for things which have little, or 
only a transient, value. The loss of money, great as it is, is only 
the smaller part of the injury. It is at least debatable whether it 
would not be true economy, after having paid for the goods, to 
throw them all overboard in mid-Atlantic — not at all on behalf of 
encouragement of home manufacture of similar articles, but to be 
rid of the pestiferous example and influence. These foreign arti- 
cles not only keep the nation poor, but also debauch the public 
taste and conscience, set up false standards of what we can afford, 
introduce a succession of absurd fashions, and convert what should 
be stalwart men and women into mere fops and imitators. New 
York makes its living — a large share of it — in handling these im- 
portations, and distributing them widespread over the continent ; 
and the greater its trade of this sort the more the country is ruined. 
Its press of course, from interest, if not from conviction, advo- 
cates the greatest freedom of trade, especially of so-called "objects 



32 SECTION I. 

of art " whereon the profits are so large as to leave a wide margin 
for advertising purposes. 1 

Consider for one moment what we get : a collection of millinery, 
bric-a-brac and finery which sooner or later finds its way to the 
attic or the rubbish-heap ; then reflect what we part with : the 
most precious part of our inheritance and labor, the phosphatic 
and nitrate constituents of the soil which do not quickly reproduce 
themselves like the ice taken from a lake, but are rather like the 
marble taken from the quarry. Deforestation may be followed at 
long intervals by reforestation, perhaps after damage by droughts 
and floods ; the draughts on the fisheries (but not it would seem of 
the seal fisheries) may be made good by stocking, or by a close 
season ; not so the soil, which must be replenished, or it soon 
ceases to repay the labor of tillage. Subsoil plowing cannot go on 
forever and adds to cost. The same cereals and breadstuffs we sell 
at bare cost of production, the railroads are compelled to trans- 
port at a rate equal only to the train-expenses, leaving the burden 
of interest on cost of construction to be borne by local or domestic 
traffic. The freight on a barrel of flour from points 1,000 to 1,500 
miles inland to Liverpool is but a trifle more than to cart the same 
across any single city, and much less than to convert it into bread. 
Indeed, dealers have exhibited in Chicago loaves, made of Minne- 
apolis flour, in Glasgow, of the same weight and cost as those pro- 
duced at the lake port. It onl^ remains to complete the reductio 
ad absurdum to reimport the Scotch bread in competition with the 
home-made article. This, however, is what we actually did for 
years with our cotton and wool fibres, sending them to Europe to 
be spun into thread and cloth, and would have continued to do so 
to this day if the arguments of the a priori economists could have 



1 The assumption that in order to sell its own products a nation must purchase a 
like amount from its customers is disproved every year by Brazil which effects tri- 
angular exchanges; and by the United States which liquidates its indebtedness by 
book credits, loans, and disposals of shares and titles to property. Western Europe 
has been swapping its fancy articles and superfluities to a tremendous aggregate for 
evidences of our indebtedness, calling for annual interest and dividend payments and 
tourists spending money of over four hundred millions. Whenever Congress is dis- 
posed to curtail this waste and bring the income and outgo into equilibrium, a chorus 
of importers and foreign ministers goes up that we are in danger of tariff retaliation. 
Having brought their easy-going customer to the verge of bankruptcy, they demand 
as of right a continuance, and resent any attempt on his part to get out and keep out 
of debt, as an affront to themselves. Retaliation may be left to correct itself. 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 33 

prevailed. This is national improvidence ; and its logical outcome 
is national dependence and national impoverishment. 

By a provision of the Constitution, inserted at tlie instance of 
the more agricultural provinces, an export tax was forbidden to be 
levied. There has not been as yet much to regret in consequence ; 
but one result is that any advantage which the United States may 
possess either in climate, soil, or beneath its soil, must be shared 
with other nations at the cost of extracting and transport. Our 
Canadian cousins are not so hampered, and are putting an ex- 
port duty on logs and wood-pulp. Russia and America have the 
great workable petroleum fields, without which the cost of illumi- 
nants would have been enhanced. How long these deposits will last 
is a matter of conjecture, and they are obviously more or less of a 
speculative investment. While free competition was possible, there 
was a general rush to empty them upon the glutted market at what- 
ever the oil would bring. The State of Pennsylvania would have 
been justified in expropriating the entire territory and conserving 
the product for the benefit of another as well as the present gener- 
ation. It might do so yet with advantage. The alternative was a 
combination of small owners into one great excusable monopoly. 
When this precious deposit is exhausted, we shall have the slender 
satisfaction of knowing we helped to light and warm the world 
at no profit to the owners, unless the upbuilding of one or two large 
estates is to be accounted a compensation. A like history is to 
follow our depleting reservoirs of natural gas. The same reasons 
a Pply P r0 tanto to the anthracite deposits in a very limited area: 
parts of five counties in the same State which, with the present 
ratios of increase are liable to exhaustion in from 150 to 200 
years. Anthracite coal will then be appreciated as a luxury. 

We shall be told that it transcends the province of government 
to dictate what people shall like or dislike, or prescribe what they 
shall eat, drink, wear, or invest in ; that the less it interferes with 
individual liberty the better for society, and so on. Partisan as I 
am of the largest individualism consistent with the equal freedom 
of others, and the welfare of society, I am loth to appear as the 
spokesman of social invasion of personal preferences. Our duty 
to truth obliges us to face the facts ; and there are apparently two 
sides to this question. The protest of Mr. Spencer and his school 
against such restraints is, however, a claim that one kind of want 
is as rational and legitimate as another, and is equally entitled to 
3 



34 SECTION I. 

gratification. It is tantamount to saying one man has the natural 
right to tempt or inveigle another into buying anything he can palm 
off on him and, if carried to full length, would not except minors, 
imbeciles or inebriates. We know, in fact, that the rule is not 
universal. The difficulty arises in running the boundaries between 
restraint and freedom ; but daily life and administration of justice 
consist in drawing such distinctions. The gambler, the lottery 
dealer, and the pawn broker desire nothing better than freedom ; 
yet society does interfere with them. The underlying question 
for students is as to what tastes, cravings, instincts and aims 
contribute to the good of the race ; which of them deserve to be 
encouraged, and which discouraged, by the State. On what other 
ground do all civilized nations tax spirits, tobacco and gaming 
implements ? 

In this matter of national, or race prodigality, take a familiar 
illustration : the country boy who has been saving up his scanty 
hoard for a whole year to visit the county fair, or it may be a sea- 
side resort hns no well-defined idea as to what his purchases will be 
for the occasion, no list of demands to be supplied ; but it is cer- 
tain as fate that he will part with his cash for what new or striking- 
thing he sees, it may be gingerbread, a coasting-ride, or for street 
fakirs' wares. It is just so with the whole national merchandising. 
At the bottom of every country merchant's list, there is, in invisible 
ink, the further item : any novelty or trinket in our line that 
we can sell. A demand such as this is created and supplied by the 
same act, and articles are being urged and foisted upon callow 
customers far beyond their natural desires, beyond their proper 
ability to buy, quite in the manner of heirs to large estates, dupes 
of crafty cheats. 

These views have been forced upon the attention of economists 
rather than propagated by them. Homilies against riches as hin- 
drances to post-mortem rewards are plentiful enough ; but they do 
little to curb ostentatious or competitive displays. It is not, how- 
ever, against the truly rich the charge of profligacy is aimed so much 
as against those who would be thought so ; by the masses who en- 
tertain the notion that respectability is an affair of outside badges, 
lavish outlays, and make-believe. Prodigality among the rich is 
responsible for much of this demoralization and ape-like imitation. 
Country homes and city mansions are tolerable, even though for the 
most part their owners are not living in them but occupying the 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 35 

hotels of both continents. Yachts, racing stables, dog kennels, 
wine cellars, picture galleries, opera boxes, equipages, banquets, 
balls, costumes, jewels, are not the delights they are supposed to be 
by outsiders, but paraphernalia, the implements of a course of tire- 
some and exhausting exercises which society imposes on its vota- 
ries for no well-defined purpose, unless it be to excite the envy of 
those who cannot afford them, or, an elaborate system of match- 
making and place hunting. 

" Shall a man not do as he likes with his own? " is asked. That 
depends. Who does not know in the ranks of his acquaintance a 
proportion who, in good times and bad, by a generous table, or 
in showy hospitality, in dress or furnishings, devour the entire 
income week by week ; people who might be comfortable but who 
never will be rich, nor yet acquire an} r competence for old age. 
The example of their neighbors and the multifarious temptations 
of the merchants are more than they can stand. Would you then 
destroy the inducements for acquiring wealth? Well, yes; some 
of them, at least. As already explained, I would encourage self 
denial, and thrift on the part of rich, moderate and poor alike, 
until we as a people get out of debt to others ; and after that to 
establish good roads, comfortable, sanitary homes and pleasure- 
grounds ; but not to enter upon a career of vanity and silly osten- 
tation. I am glad to perceive in recent writers on economics a 
much clearer and firmer note than formerly on vicious luxury. 1 

1 " The rich have their responsibility.here and their duty. Wealth and culture have 
a special service in their saving influence toward higher standards of thought and 
life and away from the raging materialism of modern society. And note that the 
distinction is world-wide between luxury and ostentation. That which the rich de- 
sire for itself and not as the badge of precedence or the target for silly envy, they 
may well have — but only on condition that they rather hide than flaunt it. Society 
is greatly in need of lessons in plain living and high thinking. It is a fallacy to sup- 
pose the wastes of the rich are necessary for the employment of the poor. The con- 
sumption of the rich determines whether the laborer shall produce this or that, and 
not whether he shall produce at all. If the rich refrain in some measure from con- 
sumption, their savings profit society under the form of capital in the production of a 
larger social dividend. But the changing demands of vanity stand to society for more 
than waste and overwork. They corrupt art ; they confuse and disturb the organization 
of industry. First, they corrupt art; no beautiful fashion, if once attained, is safe to 
stay. If grace and simplicity come as fashions, they go as fashions. The greed of 
novelty leaves the beautiful behind as antiquated, to be succeeded by the ugliness of 
humps and wings. From champagne to plumes of slaughtered birds, from skunk- 
skins to jewelry, there is nothing permanent but novelty, no custom but change. And 
note that as soon as nothing in Art which is good can abide, there will be nothing 
really good. When the best work can have but a butterfly life there will be no best 
work." 

" It is at first thought odd that unrest should especially mark the nineteenth cent- 
ury. The world is rich and growing richer, and wise and growing wiser. Never 



36 SECTION I. 



V. THE BLIGHT OF PARASITISM. 

Under Lycurgus, the pioneer social reformer, the Spartans held 
property in common. Satisfactory as the experiment was, it can- 
not be repeated, not even by imperial decree, without a supporting 
public opinion. To abolish individual property, may not be possi- 
ble now even by revolution, nor does it appear to be necessary or 
desirable, but some sort of restriction upon acquisition and trans- 
mission is desirable. "Can any man," ask the Socialists, "honest- 
ly accumulate so much as one million of dollars duriug his adult 
lifetime?" A slight acquaintance with either arithmetic or the 
investment of money at compound interest, or in the profits of trade, 
or agriculture, or pasturage, will show that he can. The familiar 
example of the blacksmith, who was to receive for shoeing the horse 
a penny for the first nail, two for the second, and so on, doubling for 
the whole series of 32, with a progressive doubling — not a remark- 
able increase for farmer, trader or stockraiser in each year — proves 
that he may become the owner of many millions, provided the rate 
of increase could be kept up for, say, a fifty-year period. The fruc- 
tifying power of seeds and plants, or of domestic animals, forms the 
basis of about all the wealth of men and nations, that from mines, 
quarries and fisheries being inconsiderable. To a man not in either 
pursuit, it is practicable, as I personally knew a teacher to do, to 
lay aside one dollar per day between twenty and seventy, investing 
in good mortgages (formerly yielding seven and six per cent.) and 

before would a day's labor bring so many dollars or buy so much 

A larger, wealthier life is open to us, and it ought to be a greatly happier life. 
And yet we ask ourselves what does it all profit? Pass rapidly over in thought the 
question whether with all our centuries of achievement we are so greatly better 
off than the Greeks without. Is the greater rush and push of life a good tiling in 
itself? What does it mean tliat the insane asylums yearly build larger for minds 
unstrung by tension? How about the multiplication of suicides? Likewise our prison 
populations are not disappearing as the good things of life become cheaper, hut theft 
somehow grows out of plenty. 

There is a grim paradox in civilization somewhere. Wherein do we fail, or waste, 
or misuse? How is it with all our opportunities? Our harvests somehow do not al- 
together shield us from hunger or our looms from tatters. What does it mean that as 
science grows and wealth multiplies the cry of poverty swells louder and louder, and 
that discontent is the fixed malady of our civilization? .... Splendor, no matter 
how much labor it has cost, is not splendor when it has become general. All may 
as well stand still as run in an equal race. Thus, material progress, so Far as it is 
directed to competitive show, cancels itself in a strife for precedence. There is 
no share of gain in it for any one, which does not stand for discontent and heart- 
ache lor some one else. All ostentation is waste from the point of view of society 
as a whole. For the poor it aggravates their poverty." — HAVENPOliT: "Outlines 
f Economic Theory." 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 37 

the total is surprising to one who has not made the calculation, 
every dollar of it lawfully and honestly earned. The clamor against 
millionaires as such, which disgraces much of our social-science lit- 
erature, to say the least, is out of place. The more of them the 
better — unless it can be shown that they have engrossed what be- 
longed to others ; or their use and disposition in some way contra- 
venes the general welfare. It ought to be added that, the rates of 
interest now being lower, five and four instead of seven and six per 
cent, and the profits from merchandising, farming, grazing and 
many forms of manufactures and transportation being halved and 
quartered by the competition of the larger surviving concerns, the 
chances of becoming a half millionaire by mere saving, without re- 
sort to speculation or usurious rates of interest, are much more 
remote. 

Suppose we take instead, the case of a person, it may be a bright 
capable young man, a young woman, or even an imbecile ward under 
guardianship, who inherits so moderate a sum as $10,000 during 
infancy, who, if he is fortunate enough to have guardians of judg- 
ment and probity, such a one may unknowingly become a millionaire 
without labor or economy. If one were able to add to this store 
further savings, and escape severe losses, the fortune might become 
very large, without encroaching on the rights of borrowers or lenders. 

It is an interesting inquiry raised of late by the movement in favor 
of taxing inheritances now sweeping from one State to another ; 
whether such an inheritance is honestly obtained, or if so, whether 
it is for the best interest of society that it so passes by descent or 
gift, to direct or collateral heirs. The answer to this class of ques- 
tions is not to be derived deductively from moral or legal maxims, 
but from observation in practice. The reasons for a change in the 
policy of inheritance and descent of large estates I have already pre- 
sented to the Section, at some length, and may be briefly summed up 
as follows : 

First. — Under the regime of free competition, the desire to accu- 
mulate great wealth is not only laudable, but necessary. Business 
and investments are by it turned into precarious lotteries. An ex- 
cess of care and fortune becomes necessary to guarantee mainte- 
nance during decrepitude, the rearing of surviving children, and 
support of relict, all of which might be accomplished with less cap- 
ital if more complete assurance could be had. This I am persuaded 
ought to be and can be furnished by the State. 

Second. — The further desire to secure by testamentary disposition 



38 SECTION I. 

for offspring more than an even chance in life by setting the sons up 
in business, or of leaving portions or dowries to the daughters after 
death is neither so necessary nor so laudable, if we judge by the re- 
sults. It cuts the nerves of self-reliance and engenders a feeling of 
"great expectations," of rewards that have not been earned ; it en- 
courages parasitism and creates sharpers and their dupes, stimulates 
fortune-hunters, and multiplies marital misery. Besides, it is con- 
trary to good morals and sound policy to hold out the hope of ad- 
vantage through the death of another, whether he be of near or 
remote kin. The profligacy of heirs to large fortunes, the demoral- 
ization and degeneracy of spendthrifts and their retinue need no 
amplification. As a contrivance to secure the marriage of daugh- 
ters, it is remarkable at present chiefly for the success of the money 
bait in attracting the needy or degenerate holders of titles to nobility, 
and is no improvement on the plan mentioned by Herodotus where 
the more comely maidens were annually bid for at auction, the pre- 
miums going to the less attractive to whatever extent was neces- 
sary to secure a consort. 

Third. — The difficulties attending succession are by no means so 
trifling as they may appear to those who are not put to the trouble. 
Public sentiment, following custom long established, dictates that 
a man's possessions shall be divided among his own children and 
blood relatives, with a reservation in favor of his widow, if there 
be one ; and the statutes have been framed on that policy in cases 
of intestacy. The courts are more and more inclined to interpret 
ambiguous phraseology to that end, and to annul wills, or por- 
tions of wills, to the contrary tenor, except upon the clearest dec- 
laration of intention and choice of instrumentalities. This is an 
attempt to curtail that plea of " undue influence " which forms the 
basis of most testamentary contests, and which breeds scandals, 
family quarrels, and wasteful litigation. In olden times there was 
hardly a possibility of a large estate being passed without a liberal 
slice to the Church, and many States have expressly limited the 
share which may thus be awarded to those not of kin or to elee- 
mosynary institutions ; others have suggestively forbidden bequests 
to priest, doctor or counsel in attendance during the last illness. 
The drafting of probated wills reveals a disposition to withhold 
the principal sum from children, for which trustees are appointed, 
giving merely the income, the capital going to the grandchildren as 
being perhaps less likely to misuse it than their parents. 

Fourth. — The bequests to charity, though undoubtedly in many 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 39 

instances perverted to founding and maintaining useless sinecures, 
are not so numerous nor so large as to constitute a menace to 
society. Contrariwise, they should be encouraged and made 
more general, and be more effectively carried out. At the same 
time the attitude of mendicancy is not favorable to manly inde- 
pendence or intellectual vigor, either on heirs of the blood or on 
institutions (unless scientific research be an exception). Philan- 
thropic aims may be rendered more certain either by concentration 
into systematic method, or by oversight and positive regulation 
from an exterior authority. It is a hopeful sign that the endow- 
ments, formerly going exclusively to churches and missionary 
efforts and the like, are now going more and more to technical 
and scientific institutions. 

Fifth. — I need not discuss here the power, or the wisdom, of the 
taxing of legacies by the State ; it is here, and promises to remain 
• and grow. The only question for the sociologist now is : Shall the 
very considerable revenues derived from these sources be mingled 
with the general treasury and be expended for any or all State 
purposes, as in New York and many States ; or, shall an effort be 
made to segregate this money and dedicate it to special purposes 
of benevolence, charity, and embellishment, thus to invite and, if 
wisely carried out, to win in advance the consent of the owners 
of large properties ? I believe it is in the power of law, and within 
the compass of economic skill, to provide a residuary legatee for 
every such person superior to any other he could choose or contrive 
for himself, so that, in fact, it would practically make no difference 
whether he executed a will or not ; or, if there were any differ- 
ence, that the machinery provided by the State would be more 
sure to meet his views than any he could select. Nothing would 
prevent him from distributing his estate during life, if he felt so 
inclined ; but on the other hand a portion of all beyond what was 
necessary to a competence to infants, to the disabled or incom- 
petent, would be turned over to a Department of Beneficence, 
managed by skilled men as are our State Universities and the 
Smithsonian Institute, who should organize and methodize the 
philanthropic impulses of the rich with the ample revenues at 
command much better than the hap-hazard litigious course now 
open to them. 

Sixth. — The same agency thus entrusted with the dispensing 
of voluntary as well as involuntary bequests, might be availed 



40 SECTION I. 

of to do away with much of the necessity for hoarding or amass 
ing riches, and to strip from great wealth some of the dangerous, 
or mischievous homage paid to it, which is the cause of so much 
friction and clashing in lives that otherwise might be serene. 
Annuities might be granted for the life of the purchaser or for the 
life of others, objects of his care and solicitude, and thus help to 
banish in large measure, the fear of the wolf at the door. The vicis- 
situdes of business and health, the disappearance or loss of friends, 
the impatience of consanguines with enfeebled dotards, are all real 
causes for morbid acquisitiveness and these might be banished by 
a pension or competency for life. Steady, though moderate in- 
come, is conducive to longevity, sanity and tranquillity. 

By such means the benefactor who is frequently at a loss what 
to do with his possession could have the double benefit of using 
it up, or all that was of any real use to him, and at the same 
time of seeing the remainder of it devoted (without the scanda- 
lous shrinkage which now attaches to many of our pet charitable 
societies) to the erection and conduct of hospitals, asylums, re- 
formatories, libraries, Carnegie and Cooper Institutes, memorial 
statues and edifices, public parks and promenades, music halls and 
pavilions. I hold it certain that the most avaricious of heirs 
would sooner see the contested wealth expended in such a judi- 
cious manner than on court costs, lawyers' fees, and the like, or 
than given to the opposite side. If it be objected that inheritance 
taxes will be evaded by gifts during life, it is easy to see that this 
is one of the objects aimed at — to coerce rich men and women to 
dispose of their excess beyond the line of competence, and to see 
the good or ill it works and not leave this task wholly to surviving 
society. There ought to be a narrower limit drawn around the 
power of the dead hand. Because of the sagacity to amass a for- 
tune, there is no reason in nature why that fact should carry with 
it after death an authority greater than to the living. 

VI. THE ROLE OF SUPERSTITIONS. 

Here let me say, we speak commonly of the sciences as if they 
were so many separate and independent fields of work, with dis- 
tinct boundaries between them ; and the division of these studies 
into so many different Chairs in our universities, and our own 
classification under ten or twelve groups or "sections" tends to 
confirm this supposition. It should be understood that Science is 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 41 

systematic knowledge, and the pursuit of knowledge according to 
methods admitting of demonstration or reasonable certainty ; and 
that each portion is not only interlaced with its near neighbor, 
but all are more or less blended and interdependent, so that any 
great advance in one affects the others, and, of course, any back- 
wardness keeps back the near-related parts. The old conception 
of Science as a pyramid, whereof languages, mathematics and 
geometry were the basis and philosophy and theology the apex, we 
must now disavow ; nor is that of a circle where the several sec- 
tions could be evenly joined together or taken apart ; or the con- 
ception of a linear prolongation as of a tree, or vine, having roots, 
stem, branches and twigs a true image. They are merely conven- 
ient symbols, but if accepted too strictly, they are apt to mislead. 
The present classification, like many it has displaced, is provisional 
and subject to re-formation as a whole, as are also the component 
parts. While mathematics and geometry remain substantially on 
the bases laid out in the infancy of science, other studies, such as 
astronomy, geology, physics, chemistry and biology, have been 
completely re-cast ; nor ought we to suppose that a finality has 
been reached ; indeed, there are signs that portend a reconstruction 
to bring them all into more harmony. From his psychical, pur- 
posive and co-operative nature, man himself must always be en- 
titled to a large and somewhat exclusive space in scientific labors 
in any scheme of science. Social science has not yet had its 
methodical re-construction. Occupied, as it must be, largely with 
men's wants, motives and passions, it is essentially psychic, and 
awaits the evolution of the New Psychology — just now renascent — 
before it can claim to be a science of precision and prevision. 
Meantime, there is much to be done ; the very terminology and 
nomenclature, framed on the old traditional theories, will require 
to be abandoned or charged with new meaning to fit them to new 
conceptions. 

It begins to look as though the wrong road had been taken in 
psychology, and that very much of the confusion, clashing and 
misery of the world is traceable to the error. It does no good, 
for instance, but harm, to assume as the text books do, or did, 
that mankind alone exemplifies the social faculty ; that he alone is 
capable of mental development ; to deny a mind or soul to the 
other animals, when they exhibit such human emotions as affec- 
tion, fear, anger, grief, jealousy, gratitude, avarice, shame, deceit, 



42 SECTION I. 

coquetry, feigning, dreaming, — attributes proceeding, so far as they 
go, on lines parallel to those traversed by all men in the primitive 
stages and by some men up to this day, but whom on account of 
their backwardness we call savages. They are "wild men" as 
distinguished from the long domesticated man. As Huxley well 
said: "It was a great day for humanity when man succeeded in 
taming the canine brother of the wolf into his companion and 
servant, so that, instead of devouring the flock, he became its 
protector." l 

In order that men and animals should survive the inclemencies 
of the elements, the encroachment of plant and parasitic life, and 
the attacks of carnivora, there must have been furnished by the 
process of selection, or by invention, the needed shields, and the 
weapons to counteract these destructive forces, with sufficient peace 
and order among their own kind to ensure the rearing of offspring, 
or otherwise the race must have long ago dwindled and perished. 
I need not go back over the several important stages in this prog- 
ress upward, each marking a fresh control over, natural forces : 
the bone implements succeeded by stone, earthenware, bronze and 
iron, followed by the prodigious array of mechanical inventions of 
the distinctly historical periods. Along with this improvement 
of man's environment and by its aid, there has gone an unfolding 
of mind faculties, an astonishing amplification of that function of 
the nervous and cerebral ganglia, quite in contrast with the growth 
of function of any of the other sense organs of the body, which 
has made possible an immense and complex use of symbols, and 
a psychical predominance which puts a gap between man and the 
other animals. These thinking powers and brain functions are, 
however, not exclusive to mankind ; they are shared by the brutes, 
and by some birds, mammals and insects to a high degree. Take, 
for example, the remarkable intelligence of the beaver, the horse, 
the ant and bee, the magpie, which are sufficient to allow a high 
degree of forethought and of architectural skill, and which follow 
on the same lines as human thinking, so nearly as to disclose the 
germs of what in a man we style civilization, such as language 
in ruder form, organized warfare, defensive and offensive, the 
enslavement and domestication of captives, construction of store- 

1 Advantage to the dog and his escape from extinction followed. Sir John Lub- 
bock lias succeeded in teaching his dog to read; but for ages dogs have read the 
countenances and gestures of one another and of men just as children do, and with 
remarkable accuracy. 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBDRN. 43 

houses and barriers for future use, various social and cooperative 
actions, and we may even discern in some of their assemblages 
promptings and behavior very much resembling our deliberations 
or ceremonial worship. These feebler manifestations we have been 
accustomed to pass lightly over as instincts, falling short perhaps 
of reasoning, and whether or no, as lacking the special faculty 
of self-consciousness. 

There is therefore a human and a sub-human psychology and 
(if mere aggregation or association of effort and action, is to be 
accepted as a distinguishing line of division) a sub-human sociol- 
ogy also, so nearly related that continual reference may be made 
from one to the other as in the case of Comparative Anatomy 
and Pathology. For that wide segment of psychic activities 
peculiar to man, in which there is not merely a consciousness of 
likeness, of community of burdens and pleasures, but also social 
purposes, aims and organized or systematic social efforts, in 
which primitive society is conspicuous (individualism being a later 
growth), combining plans for security, comfort, enjoyment, aspi- 
rations, opinions, creeds, culture, interdependent arts and indus- 
tries, we have no better name than civilization. That I take to 
be the cement which binds together individuals in a relation 
external to that of consanguinity or ethnic derivation. There are 
archaic types of this culture existing contemporaneously with the 
modern advanced ones, the strata being curiously intermixed and 
overlapping, barbaric traits cropping out everywhere upon civili- 
zation. The most convenient line of separation I can think of 
between them for the purposes of specialty subdivision, is that of 
literature, the writing faculty being the earmark of the civilized, 
and the lack of it of savage, peoples. 1 

1 If the present classification is to stand, Anthropology covers all human affairs and 
thoughts — a field too vast for a single mind to master in all its detail. Ethnology, 
Archaeology, Somatology and spoken languages would seem to belong to it some- 
what exclusively. How then are the remaining human activities to be divided, such 
as civics, politics, demography (vital statistics), economics, ethics, esthetics, arts, in- 
dustries, education, creeds, opinions, folklore, linguistics? Dr. McGee, in a very 
commendable scheme of Anthropology, has used the word Sophiology as a generic 
title for the more psychic of these, which seems to me to be a mor scientific and 
more natural line of cleavage (and one which will appeal to the sense of responsibil- 
ity of the Council) than Sociology — a hybrid at best, which not even the brilliant 
sponsorship of Comte, Spencer, Giddings, Small and others in professorial Chairs 
can reconcile with other sciences. Any arbitrary line of separation is attended with 
difficulty; but if these studies could be divided into two or three departments, it 
would tend to reflect the present trend of research. 



44 SECTION I. 

In speaking of the passion for fighting, you will notice I en- 
deavored to account for it as being derived mainly from ancestral 
experience, and as a trait common to man and the lower animals. 
We make no difficulty about accepting this explanation of those 
exhibitions of the mind faculty we call instincts ; but in regard to 
the higher faculties such as reason, will, self-consciousness and 
the like, the philosophers have hitherto followed a different but not 
very satisfactory explanation, and have sought to reserve them 
to man alone. It is only within the recollection of those now liv- 
ing that any attempt was made to study the mind with the same 
freedom as any other phenomenon, and to reduce it to an experi- 
mental and comparative method ; that is to say, for upwards of 
two thousand years, the notion of the duality of man had held the 
field and any profane meddling with the soul, as the invisible 
self, ego, or personality was deemed sacrilege, and would have met 
with ecclesiastical censure or penalties. The idea that the soul 
was something more than a function of the organism and appur- 
tenance to it, was per se an entity, lawless, independent, direct- 
ing, initiating and controlling the bodily movements, and capable 
of maintaining a varying struggle with the passions, emotions, 
instincts and intellect, was probably derived from Hindostan 
(although the doctrine of metempsychosis or successive bodily ten- 
ancy by the same immortal soul was somehow dropped out in the 
transit) about the time of Socrates and Plato, and to them and its 
engrafting on the Jewish mundane religion, we may attribute this 
long fencing off of mental phenomena from scientific observation. 
The plodding German metaphysics has done much to befog and en- 
courage this cult of separable states of the mind and personality. 

There are other traits besides the combative to be traced back to 
this race experience, such as the awe of the dead, or death-bed 
and burial, the sense of duty or u oughtness," the propensity for 
lying and stealing styled "original sin," the feeling of premoni- 
tions, and of a previous existence, the craving to penetrate the 
future Out of these ingrained mind-traits, metaphysicians have 
sought to construct "forms of the understanding," " categorical 
imperative,'^ and innate ideas, dictates of conscience, and from 
these various systems of philosophy and ethics. Indeed the claim 
is still maintained that there are two kinds of truth, the intellec- 
tual and the spiritual, and wherever their conclusions differ, the 
latter is entitled to superior validity. Confusion is thus intro- 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 45 

duced ; and we have the further claim of lifting faith above knowl- 
edge, and that religion and its bases have a sphere of their own 
from which science is excluded. This claim scientists have not 
taken pains to deny, for science need not hurry, but it concerns 
them deeply to resent it. While the spiritual theory is defective, I 
am not disposed to accept the more recent one of the genesis of 
religious ideas from dreams, ghosts or ancestor worship. These 
are supporting after- thoughts. The natural wonder as to the first 
breath of the newly born, the last breath of the dying, the heart- 
throb, ecstacy, suspense of consciousness, decay of mental powers, 
sportive variations have helped fasten the notion of a lawless and 
independent double or shade which, once accepted, has led to all 
manner of excrescent amplifications. 

Underlying this guessing at the mysteries of life, the whence and 
the whither, the how and the why of it, we may trace alike in man 
and in brute an impulse of mind or instinct which is phyloge- 
netic, rather than ontogenetic ; it belongs to the chain of descent 
rather than to the last individual links, in which we may discern the 
germ of all religious emotion. It is analogous with the embryonic 
progression through lower forms of structure. I mean the inborn 
propensity of making-believe, of personification, and of poetizing 
in the original signification. This is the true fetishistic basis and 
bias ; it extends to things animate and inanimate, especially if 
they have some semblance of animate forms. Doll-inventing 
and pet-loving are early exhibitions of it, and symbolism in art, 
image worship and ritualism are later ones. The inherent ten- 
dency to apostrophize, to endow or discover life or character, and 
to reverence is common to savages and to the children of the 
civilized, and is slowly outgrown by the former; while it lingers in 
poetry, folk-lore and superstitious observances among the latter. 
Essentially an emotional and feminine trait, it fades with experi- 
ence and the light of reason ; it is probably a vestige of the period 
when vocal utterance was but feeble and crude and when ideas 
were conveyed chiefly by signs, mimicry and gesture ; the gestures 
of obeisance, supplication and tenderness being then, as now, very 
impressive. Such is, I believe, the origin of worship. It has a 
close analogy in the palimpsest-like reappearance of old and forgot- 
ten shadows on the sensitive plate of photography after they were 
supposed to have been erased and then overlaid with more recent 
films. Religious ideas had a large use and significance in the 



46 SECTION I. 

infancy of the race and will continually crop out in spite of the 
culture of later time. In this respect the venerating or worship- 
ping impulse may be likened to the sensation experienced by 
dramatic recitals, the excitement of the dance, or the soothing of 
rhythmic sounds, the exhilaration of rapid motion ; the instinctive 
clutch of the infant which cannot have experienced a fall ; the lin- 
gering passion for fishing and hunting ; or, to take an extreme il- 
lustration, the excited aversion of a kitten at the first sight of a 
dog, or at the first smell of a mouse. By the light we now have 
we are permitted to offer a physiological explanation of phenomena 
of mind heretofore quite mysterious. Such puzzling phenomena 
as hypnosis, fascination, coincident cogitations, double and alter- 
nating consciousness are to be solved in this way. 

The time was, not so long ago, when the physiologist would 
hardly entertain the soul as a subject of speculation, not even in 
disease, insanity being accounted as possession by devils. The 
physicist would have thrown it out of his laboratory window, if 
possible. The labors of anthropologists helped greatly to lead 
out of that old rut. The study of mind in the multitude, of the 
savage, of race traits, of mythologies, folk-lore and religious cere- 
monies betrayed their true origin, and disclosed the likeness of 
origin and especially the regularity of sequences we call "laws" 
of thought. The biologists still further broadened the base of psy- 
chology by tracing it down through the gradations of organization 
to the cell, and into plant life ; nor is it certain that it stops with 
life, as we at present define life, but seems to be coextensive with 
organization. 1 

Science does not, in one sense, concern itself with teleological 
suppositions ; that is to say, it is reluctant to resort to any of 

1 For opinions on the coextensiveness of mind with life and Organism see llaeck- 
el's "Creed," E. D. Cope's "Primary Factors of Evolution" (concluding chapter), 
Darwin's Letters, Clodd's "Pioneers of Evolution," Romanes and others, Neo La- 
niarkians and Neo Darwinians. 

For expressions on the pervading reach of mind, as exhibited in unorganized mat- 
ter — as a property of matter — in the curious behavior of substances like camphor - 
grains, gamboge, frost crystals on plate glass, ligures on vibrating membranes, see 
current literature of Physics and Chemistry, Prof. A. E. Dolbear's "Matter, Ether 
and Motion," also the concluding sentence of his Lecture to Wood's Holl Biological 
Station: "At any rate it is evident that if any such theory of matter as is here pre- 
sented be true, and if the behavior of matter as we see it in the test tube and mi 
croscopic slide has been interpreted with any approach to the truth, then it is a much 
more wonderful thing than the old philosopher's thought: its possibilities greatly 
exceed what could before have been imagined; and if mind itself requires ;i material 
habitat then it has in an atom an imperishable living home." 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 47 

them to explain the observed cosmos, and prefers to listen in 
a neutral attitude to the rival philosophies : theism, manicheism, 
atheism, monism, spiritism, or materialism ; but it is at least equally 
well equipped to pass judgment on any such speculations as their 
advocates. The attempt to waive students off from the domain of 
the soul or from religious beliefs and observances, is likely to be 
disregarded. In fact the educated ecclesiastic mind now anxiously 
awaits the verdict of science on the nature of mind, and the origin 
of some of these innate ideas. When it is found that they are 
naturally accounted for as belonging to the experience of the race, 
something not to be ashamed of and still less to be proud of, 
and are not likely to be superseded very soon, the doctrine will be 
welcomed as one averting a threatened dissolution. So long as 
the perpetuity and acceptance of the church dogmas were based 
upon the inspiration of certain writings, upon miracles, upon spe- 
cial providences, soul-peril and soul-rescue, or future rewards and 
punishments, it was exposed to the double risk and cross fire of 
successful contradiction by science, and by historical criticism, and 
also liable to the ridicule of scoffers and the charge of outrageous 
fraud. Science is now on the eve of supplying a broader and more 
enduring, or at least less precarious, basis for religious ideas than 
its votaries. When Pope Pio Nono was told that science was un- 
dermining some of the foundations of the church, he exhibited a 
profounder knowledge of human nature and soul nature than the 
casuists by his reply : ' ' Then we must revive more relics and 
shrines." 

Dr. Andrew D. White has rendered a special service to scientific 
research and also to ecclesiastical training by his compilation, with 
abundant citation of textual proof, of the successive awkward re- 
treats from this position of superior spiritual discernment. When- 
ever the psychologists are ready with the lacking capstone of ex- 
perimental observable proof as to the act of thought, the further 
measurements of its velocities, and transformations of matter or 
motion into that we call consciousness, they will be listened to 
with profound attention. No propaganda is needed to enforce 
the conclusions of science, the intelligible statement is enough to 
overcome the most unscrupulous opposition. What is now waited 
for is a psychic spectrum to throw, as upon a screen, the analysis 
of mental phenomena and to give the equivalent of Frauenhofer's 
lines in perception, memory, comparison, association, ratiocina- 
tion, the several emotions below and above the limits of conscious- 



48 SECTION I. 

ness, and especially to picture for us those puzzling sub-conscious 
states the mirages of the will and the self-examination. We may 
confidently expect (probably from another rash layman) some form 
of mental bolometer which shall record for us the dimensions and 
count the number of the vibrations of this hitherto unsuspected 
mode of motion, if not also to disclose those delicate films which 
carry some but not others of those external stimuli down to pos- 
terity, and fix the stamp of ancient habits, passions and character 
long after their necessity or utility has vanished. Is it any more 
wonderful than that the two forces of heredity and environment 
should preserve the bodily forms and organic structure for a like 
period? After the publication of Haeckel's famous work demon- 
strating that man himself in embryo, and often in life, bears the 
evidence of derivation from, and similarity of nature with, the 
lower animals, it is not incredible that these mental traits should 
accompany them for the latter part of the period. As passing 
from mother to child, we accept them along with the physical 
features unquestioned. We easily detect them for three or four 
generations. Why not for ten thousand composite impressions ? 
One is tempted to use the exclamation of Huxley after his first 
reading of the "Origin of Species: " "Why, how stupid of us 
that we never thought of that before ? " 

The retrospect extending so far back enables science to look 
forward a trifle. The decay of faith, and the crumbling of dogma 
already giving anxiety to thoughtful men within the ecclesiastica 
pale, is giving rise to the question : kt What is to become of morality 
when its supernatural sanction is lost?" Prof. Goldwin Smith, 
from the historian's point of view, naturally apprehends a serious 
jolt, and doubts whether the present structure of society can stand 
the transition. The view here taken may reassure the timid. The 
doctrines which are causing such naive embarrassment : the fall of 
man, the atonement, the resurrection of the body, the real presence, 
anthropomorphic deity and filiation, angels, devils, future rewards 
and punishments may fade out and disappear — may in fact be 
relegated to the region of extinct mythologies — but the underlying 
religious idea, the worshipping instinct, will remain. It is as pe- 
rennial as the belief in fairy tales, nuptial-revels, serpent-fear, 
omens, portents, myth-making and ceremonial charms, amulets, 
lucky stones, superstitions; and having the same ingrained origin. 
They are vestigial experiences of the race — an inheritance to be 
outgrown, but meanwhile costly impediments. 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 49 



VII. DIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES. 

That type of civilization cannot be regarded as ideal or fore- 
thoughtful which tolerates a wide diversity of tongues in which to 
conduct its business or store up its ideas and valuable records. 
As already stated, difference of speech and writing tends to keep 
nations and races estranged, and so makes for war rather than 
peace. The only progress toward a uniformity of mother tongues 
now visible, is by the slow and fitful process of political absorption 
by conquest or by trade. Singularly enough the acknowledged 
languages of learning, the Latin and Greek, seem to be losing 
rather than gaining their hold upon the best literature. This is not 
altogether a misfortune ; for languages grow and expand to con- 
form to the ideas of those who use them ; and the original conno- 
tations of words are lost in their adaptations to new conceptions. 
In spite of the attempt to uphold the Roman tongue by the medical 
and priestly professions, it is no longer that spoken by Cicero. 
The English of to-day differs widely from that of Chaucer. But 
few famous treatises in science, philosophy, history or even 
theology, are now written in Latin ; other tongues command more 
readers, and it no longer so well serves as a vehicle for modern 
ideas. No language can escape this fate. The English, which is 
conceded by competent observers to be as rich, as flexible and 
precise as any of the great European tongues — though not as 
simple and symmetrical as some others — has embalmed in it quite 
as many of the indispensable works of the world, and has besides 
the suffrages of a hundred and twenty millions of people to whom 
it is vernacular, is nevertheless susceptible of great rectification, 
especially in the matter of pronunciation, spelling, and in the ir- 
regularity of the verbs. The testimony of Professor Merz, in 
writing of " Scientific Thought in the 19th Century," although 
strangely oblivious of American contributions, as such, uses the 
following language, after referring to the decaying use of the 
classics : l 

1 " The largest number of (Scientific) works perfect in form and substance, clas- 
sical for all time, belongs probably to France; the greatest bulk of scientific work 
probably to Germany, but of the new ideas which during the century have fructified 
science the larger share belongs probably to England. Such seems to be the impartial 
verdict of history. During the second half of the century, a process of equalization 
has gone on which has taken away something of the characteristic- peculiarities of 
earlier time. The great problems of science and life are now every where attacked 
by similar methods. Scientific teaching proceeds on similar line, and idea- and 
4 



50 SECTION I. 

Nevertheless the hope of establishing either Latin or Greek as 
alternative world-languages, of learning, has not been abandoned 
among the classically educated ; but all expectation of seeing the 
former generally adopted, at least as a spoken tongue, must have 
passed. If the great start of the Roman empire, and the subse- 
quent extension of its speech over a larger empire by the church, 
did not suffice to give it precedence the chances are much against 
it now. Like the Roman jurisprudence it lives chiefly in its off- 
spring. It has been more or less engrafted on the native tongues ; 
itself is practically a dead language. The Greek survives among 
living tongues, but has only a limited field as such. In scientific 
and classical education and notably in nomenclature, it has a future 
of utility as an enricher. Some of the international medical con- 
ferences are, I believe, ready to adopt it as an alternative language 
for their limited uses. 

Meantime the business of the world becomes more and more in- 
ternational and interlingual. The spread of telegraphs by land and 
under seas, the extension of steamships and steam railways across 
frontiers, sometimes across several of them, not only crowd the 
nations together but some common code of communication between 
them is a desideratum — the world of commerce no less than that of 
letters and research waits for it. Regulations for navigation on the 
high seas have been contrived by the maritime nations and adapted 
to all ; we have likewise a growing communication and conformity 
in astronomical, chemical and electrical literature ; uniformity of 
standards of weight and measurement, mechanical devices and the 
like. In a small way too we have a universal language in musical 
notation ; in the telegraphic alphabet, in the deaf-mute and in alge- 
braic signs. How much longer will the international requirements 
of the whole world have to wait before a real world-language is hit 
upon? Must we wait until the struggle for political boundaries of 
the dozen or twenty several nations of Europe has concentrated 
the smaller ones into one dominant prodigy ? If not, when and how 
shall the movement be begun and carried out, and by whom? The 
time seems to be ripe for a practical consideration of these ques- 
tions, and it concerns some association of learning to do so ; and 

discoveries are cosmopolitan property. So much more interesting must it be for those 
who have been born members of this international republic of learning to trace the 
way in which this confederation has grown up, what have been the different national 
contributions to its formation, and how the spirit of exact science, once domiciled 
only in Paris, has gradually spread into all countries and leavened the thought and 
literature of the world." 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 51 

for several reasons the initiative would seem to be left with the 
Department of Social and Economic Science. 

I need not enlarge upon the magnitude of the continuing loss 
from the present diversity of tongues, not only in the time and 
effort spent in acquiring several languages, when one beside the 
vulgar tongue might answer all purposes of education, if that other 
alternate tongue were common to the great civilized nations. The 
waste is still greater from the publication of researches, laws, trea- 
ties and records in several dresses, all of which must be consulted 
by the student who would keep abreast of the advance of knowl- 
edge. The shelves of our libraries are being piled high with books 
of all shades of usefulness and uselessness, and an extensive ran- 
sacking of bibliographies is required to master any given topic. 
The most of these have only ephemeral value, but this again adds 
to the burden. One good effect of an alternate language of learn- 
ing would be the saving from this weary plowing of the sands ; the 
truly classic works worth preserving would in a few generations be 
winnowed out and a lifetime would not be consumed in mastering 
the works of authors long superseded, but which, as they now stand 
mingled side by side, are indistinguishable. An Index Expurga- 
torius, by a scientific college de propaganda jide, is not in accord 
with modern notions, but it would be a great step in advance to 
have all science uttered in one language and reviewed in the same. 
When one thinks of the ten thousand volumes printed annually by 
the presses in English alone, one is tempted to sympathize with 
that Arabian calif who ordered the great library of his time de- 
stroyed on the ground that it was either superfluous or heretical. 

Observe, there is no suggestion to invent a new language such as 
Volapuk aspired to be. We all know languages grow by laws of 
their own, and are not run into a mold. They are, however, 
plastic and susceptible of enrichment and improvement by human 
contrivance. Instances are quite numerous where one tongue has 
supplanted another ; and the example of two or more languages 
being taught and used concurrently is quite common. In fact, 
the task of imposing a second speech on a nation is much easier 
than that of imposing another religious cult, or a change of me- 
tallic money standards either of which is still deemed to be fea- 
sible. 

The growth of languages may be compared to the formation of 
common paths and roads through the primitive wilderness ; at first 
following the trails of the wild beasts ; whenever a tree falls across 



52 SECTION I. 

the path it is deflected and so continues long after the obstruction 
has crumbled away. The tendency to these deviations and doub- 
lings seems to be inherent. The French is about the only tongue 
which has an officially appointed guardian to keep it within ortho- 
dox lines ; and it must be added that none needed it so much, or has 
so much to be done for it remaining. What is needed, and would 
seem to be practicable, is the application of modern methods equiv- 
alent to the work of the civil engineer among the time-worn paths 
— a levelling and alignment, the taking out of kinks and detours, 
and introducing greater precision and definiteness. It is no great- 
er task for our time than the change to the Julian calendar was 
for that, and is comparable with the slow spread of the Arabic 
alphabet and numerals, displacing others, and vastly more econom- 
ical than the proposition to divide the year into 13 months of 28 
days. I fear it is not the proper or congenial role for philologists 
and lexicographers whose task will come in at a latei stage, in the 
perfecting and grafting upon the adopted alternate language. Thus 
fai their special interest seems to lie in the diversity rather than 
in the uniformity of tongues ; and their very modest efforts to 
introduce a more regular spelling and pronunciation, though not 
entirely barren, are by no fault of theirs, hopelessly slow of adop- 
tion. The chances of these reforms would be better if English 
could be adopted as a world language ; and if another were chosen 
they might be needless. 

This Association is called upon from time to time to join in 
International Conferences, to recommend or appoint delegates to 
such gatherings, and to pass upon their reports touching matters 
of nomenclature, classification and standards. The cause of learn- 
ing has very much at stake in an extension of this same function 
to language. Other interests are also concerned, and whether these 
other interests — foreign commerce, diplomacy, or telegraph or trans- 
portation — shall take the initiative, or leave it to others, there should 
be a joint action and representation. This subject is already at- 
tracting the attention of practical business men who may be expected 
to move in the matter faster than the teachers and lexicographers. 
While writing, my attention has been called to an address by a busi- 
ness man to a Boston business club, advocating the use of English 
as a world language. A table quoted from Mulhall, showing the 
growth of the great European language in the years 1801 to 1890, 
shows that the English has increased 217 per cent, while no other 
excepl the German has reached so much as 100. I have added to 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COXBURN. 53 

it a column of estimated numbers using the same tongues at the 
present time, in which the lead seems to be with the English, though 
this is liable to be challenged by the partisans of Russia, as the 
official language, though not the native one, of a nearly equal 
number. 1 

Can we assume that this lead can be maintained for another 
century, when the Russian empire shall touch the two oceans and 
the Mediterranean, or when the German empire shall extend from 
the North Sea to the Bosphoius? If not there is nothing to be 
lost, and much to be gained, for us, by an earlier rather than a 
later settlement of this question. 

There have also appeared in the daily press expressions from 
some learned society of Germany, which I am expecting to see 
authenticated any day, a willingness on their part to adopt the 
English as an alternate world language, provided some necessary 
reforms were made in spelling and orally to make it more phonetic 
and conformed to the classic Latin and Greek. This is a very 
reasonable and fit concession to be imposed, and ought to be under- 
taken in our own behalf without regard to the propaganda. If, by 
some such concessions as these, the support of Germany and per- 
haps also Holland, Scandinavia and Spain, can be won, the 
adoption of the English is assured ; and we cannot too soon con- 
vene an International Conference. The Germans are handicapped 
by a Gothic eye-destroying alphabet, and an unmusical vocal 
speech, and are conscious of it. This is their opportunity and 
ours. The claim of the French as the established language of 
diplomancy is recognized in Europe, but declining even there, 
would be outweighed even though supported by Russia. Oppo- 
sition would be likely to come from that quarter, if from any ; or 
from a possible coalition of all the rest against the leader. But 

1 INTERLINGUAL CONFERENCE. 

MulhalPs Table of increase, 1801-1890. Millions spoken by in 1895. 

• ) 
120 
46. 
37. 
32. 
22. 
15. 
129. 

9. 
5. 



(* in 1801.) 


(#in 1890.) 


12.7 


27.7 


19.4 


12.7 


18.7 


18.7 


9.3 


8.3 


16.2 


10.7 


4.7 


3.2 


19. 


18.7 



100 100 



English . 


KltCTl. 


French . 




German . 




Italian 




Spanish . 




Portuguese 




Russian (?) . . 


Scandinavian . . 


Holland . 





54 SECTION I. 

fortunately this is a case in which there is no compulsion. No 
nation need be bound by any recommendation of the Conference, 
if it thought it could do better to stand out. In brief it is the 
counterpart of the decimal metrical system ; the advantages and 
drift of any action would be toward uniformity sooner or later. 
Professor Mahaffy is out in a very pronounced opinion as to the 
need of rectifying English ; while Mr. Havelock Ellis I perceive is 
quoted as favoring French as a second choice. 

My own idea about the manner of calling, and the composition 
of, such an Interlingual Conference is that, by virtue of her much 
greater foreign commerce, marine interests including telegraph, 
postal, consular, and diplomatic intercourse, the initiative would 
properly belong with the mother country. Any such call from her 
would be sure to suggest some antagonism and most likely also 
she would be asked to content herself with one vote on behalf of 
Britain and all her colonies ; and attempt might be made to link in 
the United States. I have no idea that representation according to 
aggregate population would be acceptable. The most feasible plan 
will be by nations, or groups of nations, the offshoots and colonies 
not being reckoned except in the single case of the United States, 
which, if expedient, could speak for Canada tuo. The position of 
North America, is one of peculiar freedom from jealousies and 
entanglements, and if the mother country will for this occasion 
graciously let her full-grown settled daughter appear in the fore- 
ground, there will be less friction to encounter and the result will 
be the same in either case. 

There is a certain fitness aside from its expediency. American 
lexicographers and philologists have done more for the improve- 
ment of English in a hundred years than the British. Besides, the 
number of universities and students and the literary output are now 
comparable in volume if not in quality, with the older nation. The 
ultra-conservatism of British publishers is shown by an unwilling- 
ness to handle books by American authors using the abridged spell- 
ing of certain common words where the right of argument is on our 
side. Again, in Asia, especially in China and Japan, which are 
now open to Occidental literature, science and arts, we are side by 
side with the British and opposed by French and German influences. 
If I am rightly informed, Japan is most anxious for uniformity ; in 
fact, would accept readily a common tongue, and prefer the Eng- 
lish. The part to be played by these islanders of the far East in 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 55 

international affairs cannot yet be denned, but their alliance in these 
bonds of peace, civilization and learning, is worth cultivating. 

As a rough outline of the composition of the first conference on 
an alternate common language for international trade, intercourse 
letters, science and arts, let us suppose that whenever a sufficient 
number of avowals of interest in the subject shall have been received 
from representative bodies, an invitation shall be addressed by the 
Secretary of State of the United States, or by this Association, or 
some similar body, to like associations and guilds in the following 
countries, to choose delegates to meet at some suitable time and 
place in Central Europe : 

1. Great Britain, including colonies and India. 

2. United States of America and Canada. 
;-?. Germany not including Austria. 

4. Austria and the Hungarian and adjacent Slav States. 

5. France including her colonies and Belgium. 

6. Spain and Portugal. 

7. Italy. 

8. Greece. 

9. Holland. 

10. Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden and Norway). 

11. Russia. 

12. The Spanish and Portuguese republics of North and South 

America. 

13. Japan (by courtesy, not voting). 

Each of these units to be represented by, say, five delegates drawn 
respectively from the larger international interests. 

A. Political, diplomatic and jurisprudence. 

B. Scientific, mechanical and medical. 

C. Foreign commerce and navigation. 

D. Telegraphic, Foreign Exchange and Postal. 

E. Pedagogy, Philology and publishing. 

Here we may have a polyglot convention of say sixty-five persons, 
with sixty votes, representing various pursuits. All that it need 
do is to pass resolutions after preamble recommending to their re- 
spective governments, that it be made lawful on and after a certain 
date, say January 1, 1901 ; or as soon thereafter as may be, to use 
the language adopted, and that it shall be taught in all public schools 
as a second, or alternating, language ; and further that all docu- 



56 



SECTION I. 



ments for interlingual use such as passports, cable and telegraph 
blanks, navigation charts and astronomical codes, postage stamps, 
money orders, letters of credit, coins, tables of metric systems, 
shall be inscribed in both media. Similar action on the part of 
the guilds and institutions themselves would be sufficient to ensure 
the trial. 

The work of simplifying the adopted tongue, so as to make it 
more acceptable and more easily acquired by the rest is quite 
another function, belonging to a different body, and can be report- 
ed on from year to year without limit of time. Our newest dic- 
tionaries contain already some thousand of minor and acceptable 
changes. It would greatly add to the regularity and euphony of 
the English (if it should be chosen) to incorporate and substitute 
freely from the Spanish as written (not however including the ec- 
centricities of its pronunciation) in which case the Latin and Italian 
method should be taken ; in this way the good will of our neighbors 
on the American continent might be secured, with no detriment 
whatever to ourselves. Computations are sometimes made to show 
the enormous aggregate loss from the use of redundant or silent 
letters in writing and typesetting. This economy is easily embraced 
within the larger reform outlined above. 

Elizabeth, New Jersey, U. S. A. 



ADDRESS BY RICHARD T. COLBURN. 57 

APPENDIX. 



Uniformity of Scientific and other Literature. 

American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Detroit Meeting, 1897. 

•The following preamble and resolution, originating with Section I — 
" Social and Economic Science," and duly reported by the Council to the 
Association, was adopted Aug. 12, 1897, with the recommendation that 
copies thereof be forwarded together with the explanatory remarks of 
Vice President Colburn to corresponding foreign Associations and Insti- 
tutions of learning, for information, in order to elicit responses looking 
toward the greater uniformity in scientific and other international litera- 
ture, by an international conference or otherwise. 

Whereas this Association is from time to time called upon to recom- 
mend or choose del elates to international conferences seeking to promote 
uniformity in scientific classification, nomenclature, metrology, publica- 
tions, and is likewise interested in uniformity of navigation and postal 
regulations, and researches at present recorded in several differing Euro- 
pean languages ; and 

Whereas the diversity of tongues is a continuing hindrance to inter- 
change of knowledge and literatures, seriously enhancing the cost and 
labor of studious pursuits, which might in large measure be avoided by 
the adoption by the civilized nations of an Alternate Language of Learn- 
ing, Law and Commerce, and as such required to be taught in higher 
schools fin combination with the mother tongue) and used in interlingual 
correspondence and printed records; and 

Whereas it is believed this need is felt and acknowledged by societies 
and corporations of several nations and awaits the initiative of some one 
of them to propose concerted action thereon ; now therefore be it 

Besolved, that whenever the President or Permanent Secretary of the 
Association shall have received from similar bodies, or from Universities 
of Europe, sufficient in number to represent a majority of the maritime 
peoples, expressions signifying a desire to cooperate in an International 
Conference of Languages, it shall be his duty to lay the same before the 
Council at the next regular, or, if need be, at a specially-called, meeting, 
with a view to the appointment of one or more delegates to represent 
American Pedagogy and Science thereat,- at some convenient time and 
place in Central Europe. 

In like manner the Permanent Secretary is hereby authorized to ac- 
knowledge, on behalf of this Association, receipt of such invitation for a 
like purpose emanating from any government, or department thereof, 
Institution of Learning, Technical Science, Chamber of Commerce or 
Finance, Telegraphic or Transportation Bureau, Postal Union or Academy 
of Arts and Letters, and to pledge the further attention of this Council 
to the same. 



L|BFjARY OF CONGRESS ^ 

027 273 670 4 



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